Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Page 4
Dear The Reykjavík
Grapevine,
I am Ben Cawdor.
I am writing to you
because I 'd like to
talk with you about a Star Wars
character that since 1977 has no a
real name and a story.
Do you remember one of the de-
leted scenes from "Star Wars IV : A
New Hope" entitled "Stormtrooper
Search"?
In that fabulous scene appears
a stilt-legged creature (played
by english stilt-walker artist Pe-
ter Barbour) that runs into Ry-
car Ryjerd among the streets of
Mos Eisley. For this, it was called
by fandom in this way: "The Stilt
Monster". But, who really was that
creature? So far, obviously, nobody
really knows! So far... but hearing
its voice and its emitting sounds
I would say that it was a droid and
not a Quor'sav, as many others
think.
However, it also appeared in
"The Star Wars Holiday Special" ( =
S level of canon).
Therefore, I personally created
the story of that droid, its back-
ground etc, in order to FILL THE
VOID!
Go ahead! I hope you like it.
Name of that droid : C1-R0 (10
BBY Tatooine - 3 ABY Florn)
-Story -
C1-R0 droid originally belonged to
Sabbya Mawstra, a twi'lek mecha-
nician from Ryloth who had his
own workshop on Tatooine, pre-
cisely near Mos Espa. A day one of
his assistant/helper robots killed
him. C1-R0 droid, that was very at-
tached to its master Sabbya, killed
that murderer droid. C1-R0 vowed
revenge against all the droids of
the Galaxy, in memory of its be-
loved Master. However, a group of
Jawas captured it and put on its
robotic body a control device. Af-
ter 2 years spent among them as
a "slave" , C1-R0 managed to cut it
off the control device and killed the
entire Jawas' droids.
Then it escaped and started
to kill every droids on its way, us-
ing their parts to change itself, in
order to increase its strength: in
fact it decided to become a Bounty
Hunter. Figure whose existence it
learned through the stories nar-
rated by Jawas during its imprison-
ment period, stories that exercised
a great fascination in its robotic
mind. Some time later it reached
Mos Eisley and here it immediately
went in search for an upgrade for
its robotic legs: it found the perfect
metallic parts in the hidden back-
yard of a store specialized in high-
tech, belonging to an elderly Sniv-
vian. C1-R0 stole those parts and
with them built for itself two new
and very high legs that seemed al-
most two stilts. Thanks to them it
could finally run. But that robbery
did not go unnoticed, since that
metal (cunningly subtracted by C1-
R0 droid ) was previously bought
by a Saurin named Xertonl P'ham,
a notorious smuggler, who imme-
diately put a bounty on the thief of
his stolen material.
vC1-R0 heard the news about it
and, to avoid troubles, covered the
metal of its new long legs with rags
taken from some stalls. Once the
camouflage was accomplished , C1-
R0 droid began looking for its first
engagement as a Bounty Hunter ,
in the same day in which Obi -Wan
Kenobi and Luke Skywalker arrived
in Mos Eisley. While it was looking
for a client a Bimm named Rycar
Ryjerd hit it with a paralyzing gun
specific for droids. During that at-
tack C1-R0 droid saw the face of its
attacker and understood the reason
of his violence. It was paralyzed on
the sandy ground for ten minutes
then it stood up and frantically
went looking for its small but in-
sidious assailant. C1-R0 droid was
very angry because Rycar Ryjerd
stolen from its metallic back a pre-
cious circuit, the "XPO- 734", a spe-
cial circuit that increase the visual
power of the droid equipped with a
visual apparatus.
At some point it reached the
small Bimm ( that's the content of
the famous deleted scene "Storm-
trooper Search" from "Star Wars
IV: A New Hope" , then recycled
inside the "The Star Wars Holi-
day Special") but he managed to
escape from it. In fact, despite its
efforts, C1-R0 droid didn't recover
the circuit so organized itself to
look for an another one. Finally
it found a droid, a perfect droid
for its purpose. It completely de-
stroyed that droid, taking posses-
sion of the XPO-734 circuit, a new
XPO-734 circuit for it. C1-R0 didn't
know a thing : the droid that it had
killed was property of a danger-
ous criminal affiliated to Jabba The
Hutt, who sent two of his "Guys"
to eliminate it, in order to avenge
the offense. C1-R0 droid was de-
stroyed in an alley of Mos Eisley.
Destroyed but not terminated.
So, later, a WED Treadwell repair
droid, noting its scrap, picked it
up and brought it in the workshop
of its master : Solth Kamn, a ro-
dian mechanician. Here C1-R0 was
partially reassembled and, when it
discovered that a droid saved it, C1-
R0 began to change its behaviour.
Farther, Solth Kamn reminded it
of its first Master, Sabbya Mawstra.
C1-R0 chose to abandon its "dream"
about the bounty hunter profession
and return to be a repair droid, as
it originally was. It asked to Master
Kamn to take it with him and he...
accepted.
About two years later its new Mas-
ter Solth Kamn joined the Rebel
Alliance, not as a soldier but as a
mechanic. His first mission was
on the "Mon Calamari Shipyards"
around Planet Mon Calamari, and
here C1-R0 droid followed him as
his trusted assistant. A few months
later Solth Kamn's services were
requested in the rebel base located
in the Planet Hoth but during the
journey something in the propul-
sive mechanism of his spaceship
broke and at the end it fell into a
Planet (Planet Florn). There, in that
wild place, C1-R0 droid, trying to
save its Master Kamn from fero-
cious indigenous beings (the Lam-
proids), was destroyed and defini-
tively terminated.
That's it.
P.S. I am not interested about mon-
ey. My only goal is give "justice",
help that sadly forgotten character
, because it has a very potential :
this can be simply understood just
by reading the story that I created
for it.
Dear Ben,
Thanks for trying to fill this deep,
vast, aching void inside Star Wars.
Finally! Finally, someone thought to
expand upon the origin and life story
of "the stilt monster"! We've been
waiting for this day for a long time.
These questions aren't going to an-
swer themselves, after all. So thank
you for taking matters into your own
hands while Lucasfilm rest on their
laurels.
But hey, we want to know a few
more details here. For example,
these two "guys" that Jabba the Hutt
sent to Mos Eisley. Where were they
from? Did either of them have a
tragic past that led them to become
gangster henchmen? And as for Solth
Kamn, the rodian mechanician—
perhaps his story would be interest-
ing. We heard he was once a sous-
chef on Calcoraan. Can you confirm?
With the current rate of Star
Wars franchise movies in produc-
tion, maybe this has legs to become
a motion picture. But we gotta say,
that ending was a bit harsh. Are you
sure he didn't defeat the Lamproids
on Planet Florn? Could be make-or-
break for the plot arc.
Have a t-shirt while you think it over.
– Your Friends At The Reykjavík
Grapevine.
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