11 Villain Origin Stories We Want Next From The Star Wars Universe
With "Andor" and "Solo: A Star Wars Story," the galaxy far, far away has given us its fair share of hero origin stories, revealing what the lives of some of our favorite good guys looked like before we met them first. Why, though, must the heroes be the only characters whose tales get told? Yes, the prequel trilogy is devoted to explaining how Anakin Skywalker transformed into Darth Vader, and Boba Fett's beginnings are touched on in "Attack of the Clones" and "The Clone Wars," but there are still relatively few villain origin stories in Star Wars catalog, especially on TV. Even though "Tales of the Jedi" shows us a young Count Dooku, it couldn't let the whole show be about him, and leans equally hard on stories about Ahsoka. There are some indications that the upcoming Disney+ series, "The Acolyte," will delve into the darker side of the Star Wars universe, but it's hard to say exactly how much until the show debuts.
So, how about some more baddie backstories? Naturally, we have some ideas. Yes, ever since Disney proclaimed that all canon counts, we know some of these folks have had their lives explored more in comics and novels. However, live-action and animated projects still take precedence, both in terms of canon and public awareness. As such, these are some of the intergalactic heels who might be fun to kick back with.
11. Cad Bane
He's an evil Clint Eastwood type in the Star Wars universe. What's not to love? Just as Eastwood's Man with No Name movies pulled heavily from samurai films, Cad Bane's stories could adapt any number of classic western adventures. Maybe he began life like Maddie in "True Grit." Perhaps his childhood was more of a "Lone Wolf and Cub"-type deal (although, to be fair, Star Wars has already more or less tackled that idea). Whatever the case, there's no doubt it was tough — the guy knows how to survive in any administration, be it Republic, Empire, or Remnant.
Nobody emerges fully formed as one of the best at what they do, so how did Cad get there? Let's see the full story. There's a reason why he's the only Duro — or any Star Wars character, really — we've seen in a cowboy hat. We assume there's a reason, anyway. Somewhere, somehow, he either trained or grew up on a planet that's like Earth's Old West, and we need a better western-style Star Wars story than "The Book of Boba Fett." Maybe he's the only one who dresses like he does because he killed all the others. Who knows? Show us.
10. DJ
When the Mandalorian first revealed that his name was Din Djarin, more than a few fan theories suggested that DJ from "The Last Jedi" might be the older version of him. Unless Din really, really gets his heart broken by Grogu someday — something that Lucasfulm would not dare do to us or its biggest cash cow character — DJ's too jaded to be even related to a guy with a heart-of-gold like our Mando. There's a lot of room to play with him, though, since we don't even know his real name; "DJ" is just a placeholder derived from his catchphrase, "don't join." Look, they had to print something on toy packages. One of the few genuine "tweener" characters in the Skywalker saga, DJ has far fewer limits on what he can and can't do. His origin story would be a seedy Star Wars adventure starring Benicio Del Toro. What's not to love?
Since DJ still lives out there somewhere, a series could either build up to his arrival in a Canto Bight jail cell, or continue his journey after Captain Phasma paid him. Maybe he can go back to Canto Bight and pick up all those Disneyfied orphans, then turn them to crime, Fagin-style. More likely, he'd be hired to pull some sort of heist and get double-crossed. Star Wars could use a multi-episode "Ocean's 11" with aliens.
9. Palpatine
By design, the biggest bad in the Star Wars franchise has a background shrouded in some level of mystery. By its nature, Disney will eventually strip mine every possible resource from the properties it owns. Like the "Saw" movies, which filled in Jigsaw's every past moment in a desire to keep Tobin Bell on screen, Lucasfilm should do whatever it must to give us more Ian McDiarmid. As for those rumors Matt Smith would play young Palpatine in "Episode IX," how about making them real? His Daemon Targaryen on "House of the Dragon" proves he'd be great.
There's lots to know about Senator Palpatine. Is he a normal human disfigured by Force lightning, or was he always a wrinkly bastard hiding behind a false face? Did he actually serve Darth Plagueis? Why did official sources call him "Cos" for years before finally telling us his actual canon first name is "Sheev"? And what exactly was he doing between trilogies — just building Snokes in jars? How old is he, even? And when did he spawn kids, let alone a granddaughter?
Officially, Lucasfilm claims it will never definitively answer the question of Anakin's virgin birth. However, the company has often proceeded to do things it said it wouldn't — at one point, the entire concept of a "sequel trilogy" was decidedly off the table — and Palpatine's origin story could clear the confusion right up. Of course, Anakin being Palpatine's kid in any way would retroactively make the ReyLo kiss in "The Rise of Skywalker" incestuous, but hey, that's a Skywalker tradition.
8. Ochi of Bestoon
In every Star Wars trilogy, there's a cool-looking bounty hunter who we're given very little info about. They pique fan interest because of the way they look, they maybe get an action figure, and usually a lot of their backstory gets filled in later. In the original trilogy, it was Boba Fett. In the prequels, it was Aurra Sing. And in the sequel trilogy, it's Ochi of Bestoon, a character presented to us as though he already has a reputation, much as Boba Fett did. With his creepy button eyes and parched face, he's an instantly scary antagonist, looking like David Cronenberg's masked killer in "Nightbreed."
In the comics, we learned that Ochi served Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, and Crimson Dawn at various points. Give us more than that. Explain how his dagger features a script that's illegal for protocol droids to read, and when that exact etching of the Death Star debris was carved into it. While we're at it, since Ochi's primary mission was to find Rey and kill her parents, his story could shed a little more light on how exactly Palpatine has kids. Yes, the spin-off materials say that Rey's dad was a clone, mainly because nobody at Lucasfilm is cruel enough to want you envisioning a naked Emperor humping anybody. Still, the whole "You're his granddaughter" exposition dump in "Episode IX" was one of those buried-lede drops that require more to back it up. Telling Ochi's story would do that.
7. Moff Gideon
A prequel starring Giancarlo Esposito? That'd never work...
Kidding aside, of course everyone wants to know more about Moff Gideon. Like, how the hell did he get the Darksaber, and what does he know about Grogu's background? It's safe to assume that "The Mandalorian" will ultimately answer some of these questions, but will probably do so in the show's regular timeline. Flashbacks aren't a big thing in the Star Wars universe, but prequels certainly are. If Gideon is in his 60s like actor Giancarlo Esposito is, that puts the Moff's birth during the prequel era, meaning his youth spans the rise of the Empire and its defeat. That's one big arc, and potentially the seeds of a "Godfather II"-esque tale spread across two eras about a ruthless man who accumulates power and hangs on to it while everyone around him is losing theirs.
We can anticipate that Gideon is going to die by the sword — or the saber — eventually. But, when that happens, he will still have outlived all the major humanoid villains in canon, save maybe Palpatine, whom we can't really count out because he's gone through more than one body. What a story he must have by the end.
6. Dengar
Dengar looks like Johnny Cash escaped from a burn unit with an air conditioner strapped to his back. How exactly is this guy one of the baddest bounty hunters of all time? Like, he's tough enough that he made Darth Vader's top six, alongside two droids literally programmed for hunting and killing (technically self-reprogrammed in 4-LOM's case, but whatever). Do his bandages fly off like Mumm-ra the ever-living? Is he just that damn smart? In the old Expanded Universe, he saved Boba Fett from the sarlacc, but that was retconned out of existence in "The Book of Boba Fett," which shows Boba escaping the creature's belly all by his lonesome.
There's also the question of how Dengar ended up as a hideous, Humpty-Dumpty-meets-Krang cyborg named Rothgar Deng in "The Rise of Skywalker." Like so many other aspects of that movie, it begs for more backstory, since nobody bothered to put much of any in "Episodes VII" and "VIII," and Disney suddenly realized it needed closure.
5. Dryden Vos
Basically, after Paul Bettany gave such a great performance in "WandaVision," he needs to get back on Disney+. Charming, English-accented, and looking spiffy in black with a half-cape, the man was born to play a Star Wars villain. There's also lots about his Dryden Vos we don't know. What's with the scars on his face, and the way they darken and lighten? Why does he have that Mandalorian armor on display? On what sort of planet do they build spaceships with a vertical orientation, and why? These are things many writers could have fun with.
We never even got to see Dryden interact with Maul, who presumably hired him in the first place. How exactly did that meeting go? Was there an audition process? You could argue that the less we know about Dryden Vos, the more interesting he is, but if Bettany plays him again, nobody should bet against him.
4. Enfys Nest
Enfys Nest isn't quite a villain by the time we finally meet the woman behind the mask; she's part of the nascent Rebellion. However, as the leader of an outlaw biker clan, her opposition is probably more of a libertarian-anarchist one than the liberal democratic ideals of the Old Republic remnants. Still, how did someone so young get to be so feared that Beckett and his gang wanted to avoid her? And how did she become so skilled at a young age that she could, in fact, take out his team?
Her limited dialogue offers some hints — does the pointed comment about her mother mean that she's the daughter of Thandie Newton's Val? Is her bad blood with Beckett more personal than just a professional rivalry? What happens to her in the Rebellion? We know that Edrio Two-Tubes ultimately left her side to join Saw Gerrera, but that certainly doesn't mean that Enfys died. She was young enough to have a lot of future ahead. Showrunner Tony Gilroy may have said no to major cameos, but Enfys certainly should be acting out during the time of "Andor"....
3. Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba
Considering the way that Star Wars has recently been obsessively including origin stories for things that never needed them, like Han's dashboard dice, Leia's holster, and Luke's Skyhopper model kit, it's a wonder that Lucasfilm hasn't followed up on one of the most loaded lines of dialogue in the original trilogy: "I have the death sentence on 12 systems!" That's a bold claim, if true, and one that practically demands more backstory than what we've recently gotten in the Star Wars comics. There also has to be a good reason why anyone on the run from 12 death sentences would brag about it to an utter nobody before threatening to kill him for the heck of it. Obviously, Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba aren't afraid of blowing their cover, especially since we now know, thanks to "Rogue One," that they had been on Jedha mere moments before.
Here's another retcon-ish point for their boldness: They were literally just on the planet that used to be a Jedi home world, and they pick a fight in a bar with a guy who looks exactly like a Jedi. Granted, Jedi robes look pretty similar to basic Tatooine garb, so it's easy to get confused. However, this Jedi also looks and sounds exactly like one of the best-known Jedi of all time, only older. We know that Imperial propaganda stamped out most records of the Force, to the extent that people like Han Solo didn't know about it. But to know and not care? There's a story there.
2. General Hux
General Hux is just about the only character in the sequel trilogy to remain consistently hateable the entire way through. Kylo Ren is redeemed, Snoke turns out to be a bad clone, and Phasma is taken out too easily — twice. Hux? He remains a whiny fascist throughout, a pathetic narcissist who'll rat out his own boss to get revenge after he's passed over for a promotion. His whole "I'm the spy" bit is the worst attempt at a babyface turn ever, and is punished accordingly.
So, how did this guy ever become Snoke's non-Force-wielding number one guy? We'd like to see that, especially since he's about the right age for his lifetime to cover the still-mysterious gap between trilogies. How did the First Order begin, exactly? Why weren't people overly concerned that it looked almost exactly like the Empire? And how did such a bratty little you-know-what make any headway in an organization that relies on ruthless displays of power? The novel "Phasma" touches on this briefly, informing us that Hux's father was a big player in the First Order (and that Hux conspired with Captain Phasma to kill him), but that barely scratches the surface. Give us Hux's life story, and the rest of the pieces might just fall into place.
1. Qi'ra
Most of what we see from Emilia Clarke's Qi'ra in "Solo" isn't villainous at all. She's Han Solo's first love, and gets roped into continuing a life of crime when she's prevented from escaping with him. When Han finally comes back around to his roots, she's by the side of Crimson Dawn baddie Dryden Vos. But after Han confronts Vos, Qi'ra kills her boss, sending Han after his double-crossing employer, Tobias Beckett. Declining to leave her life of crime now that she's in the driver's seat, she contacts the real leader of Crimson Dawn, Maul.
And then? Well, we don't know. We know almost every beat of what Maul got up to afterwards, but what about Qi'ra? She turns up alive later in Original Trilogy-era comics, but there's a gap in her story during those early Rebellion years, and another once the Galactic Civil War heads into its final stages. Since it appears that she remained in Crimson Dawn, by Star Wars standards, that ultimately makes her a villain. Besides, if we were Qi'ra, seeing Han get with a princess would be infuriating.
But how evil would she be? Maul undoubtedly had Palpatine monitoring his affairs, through his Force-aided awareness of the dark side, if nothing else. Would he care as much about Qi'ra? Leaving Jabba alone suggests that the Emperor doesn't care about crime syndicates. But if Qi'ra somehow survived to the sequel trilogy era, leverage over Han — and his kid — could prove very useful to Palpatine's meat puppet, Snoke.