Whatever happened to Jabba the Hutt's son? Where'd the Crimson Dawn go? Who was Snoke, anyway? Keep
watching for more "Star Wars" storylines that were lost a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is often commended by fans for filling in the many blanks that
had been left behind by the prequel trilogy. But one plot point that neither the show nor
the films ever elaborated on was the notion that Anakin had no father. Theoretically,
he was conceived via the Force, similar to Mary's virgin birth of Jesus Christ in the
Christian religion, but it's never mentioned again after Shmi Skywalker first tells Qui-Gon Jinn.
How this happened in the Disney canon is still a mystery. In Legends, the Darth Plagueis novel
explained that Palpatine's master had discovered how to influence the force to such a degree
that he could use it to create life itself. He taught Palpatine how to use this power,
and when they experimented with it, they accidentally created Anakin. This revelation
meant that the Sith had literally created the person that would eventually destroy them,
and the idea had a sort of poetic justice to it that many fans found quite appealing.
Back when The Phantom Menace was released, however,
details about Shmi's immaculate conception had been received with indifference by many — which
likely led the main Star Wars universe to downplay it in subsequent installments.
In 2008, Lucasfilm released an animated movie called Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
This was basically a theatrical pilot for the upcoming television series of the same name,
and its plot revolved around Jabba the Hutt's son,
Rotta. Secretly kidnapped by Count Dooku's agents, the party that managed to return
Rotta to his father would be granted access to key hyperspace lanes controlled by Jabba,
greatly aiding their war efforts. Anakin Skywalker and his new apprentice, Ahsoka Tano,
eventually rescue Rotta and secure Jabba's help… and then Rotta the Hutt is never seen again.
To this day, fans have no idea what became of the little Hutt-let. Certainly, by the time
Jabba is killed by Princess Leia and her crew, Rotta is nowhere to be seen.
It's quite possible that Rotta had simply moved out of Jabba's Tatooine Palace by this point, and
that he's still happily operating a crime cartel in some other distant corner of the universe.
But it’s a surprising fact that a character as significant as Jabba has a son whose fate remains
unknown — especially since a continuation of his story could be pretty interesting.
When Count Dooku's droid army captures Obi-Wan Kenobi in Attack of the Clones,
he tells Obi-Wan that a Sith Lord is controlling the Republic's Senate.
[laughter]
Yet, despite the fact that this admission should have been a major red flag for the Jedi Order,
the Jedi do nothing with this knowledge. As far as fans know,
the Jedi never investigate the claim or look into it in any meaningful way.
This plot point could have been a major revelation, one with serious
ramifications spawning numerous storylines. Instead, the claim is never followed up on,
only mentioned a few times in subsequent Star Wars iterations and dismissed half-heartedly each time.
Though it makes sense that the Jedi wouldn't take the villain at his word, it is strange
that they've never investigated it, either on-screen or in the pages of a comic or novel.
Over the course of Episodes 18 and 19 of Season 2,
The Clone Wars introduced its own version of Godzilla. They
named the creature the "Zillo Beast" as an obvious homage to the Japanese creation,
and soon had the monster rampaging through the streets of Coruscant. In the first episode,
"The Zillo Beast", the creature is awakened from its long slumber on the planet of Malastare.
Though the planet's natives want to destroy and kill the creature,
Palpatine and the Jedi secretly save the creature's life and bring it to Coruscant to study
and preserve it. The creature briefly escapes during "The Zillo Beast Strikes Back," however,
before the Republic finally manages to kill it. The episode ends with Palpatine taking
its body for further study and ordering his head scientist to attempt to clone it.
It is never mentioned again. To this day, fans don't know what, if anything, came about as a
part of this research. Of course, the in-universe explanation would be that Palpatine's scientists
failed, since Zillo clones have never been seen and no lightsaber-resistant armor
has ever materialized within the Empire. But it's not certain why the show's creators
chose to end the episode on something of a cliffhanger, only to never address it again.
When Lucasfilm released Solo: A Star Wars Story in theaters in 2018,
nobody could have anticipated one of its most surprising cameos: Maul. Played in person once
again by Ray Park, with Rebels and Clone Wars actor Sam Witwer returning to voice him, Darth
Maul is revealed in the latter half of the film as the head of the dreaded Crimson Dawn cartel.
This is another storyline that would never be seen again. The next time fans see Maul in
the timeline is throughout the second and third seasons of Rebels, by which point Maul has been
stranded alone on Malachor for years and no longer leads anybody, let alone a vast criminal network.
Although it's still unknown exactly how Maul went from intra-galactic crime boss to lone survivor,
one possible answer might be found in an old interview with Alden Ehrenreich.
According to Ehrenreich, he had signed on for three films, potentially indicating
that Lucasfilm had been planning on making a Solo trilogy of sorts. If this was the case,
the next two movies might have featured Maul more prominently. If nothing else, though, there's at
least a chance fans might get to learn how he fell from grace in Marvel's Crimson Reign mini-series.
The Force Awakens introduced a new alien to the franchise:
Maz Kanata. A friend of Han Solo and apparently Chewie's ex,
Maz is the "pirate queen" of Takodana — and before her castle is destroyed by the First Order,
it acts as a hub for smugglers from across the galaxy. A force-sensitive herself, Maz spent her
millennia-long lifetime collecting artifacts of all kinds within the storehouses of her castle.
One surprising item in her collection is the lightsaber that Anakin Skywalker built
during the Clone Wars, which later passed down to Luke. Before The Force Awakens,
the blade had last been seen falling into the abyss during Luke's duel with Vader on Cloud City.
"That lightsaber was Luke's and his father's before him, and now it calls to you."
Many understandably believed the lightsaber to be lost forever, and yet Maz Kanata somehow found it.
But how? If Maz has been alive for a millennia, where was she during the other films? Did she know
any other Jedi, and could she even appear in the ongoing High Republic project? Though the fate of
the weapon was teased in the pages of the comics, nothing more was revealed about it other than it
was found. Fans can only hope that they'll one day get the answers to these questions.
One of the major turning points in The Force Awakens is the destruction of the New Republic
capital at the hands of the First Order's newest super-weapon, Starkiller Base. Subsequently,
many fans speculated about what might happen to the New Republic in the next film.
Founded after the events of Return of the Jedi, the New Republic had been a major facet of the
"Legends" stories set in that time period, and so speculation ran amok as to what it
might look like in the canon universe. Sadly, the New Republic never made a proper appearance
in the sequel trilogy. In both The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, the New Republic is
simply gone. Apparently, audiences were meant to believe the destruction of its capital immediately
and totally destroyed the entire Republic for the second time in the Skywalker saga.
This was a disappointing choice for those who wished to see the promises of the Original
Trilogy fulfilled. And even though we've seen glimpses of the New Republic in The Mandalorian
and Star Wars: Squadrons, the movies' treatment of this new government leaves a lot to be desired.
The Force Awakens introduced the galaxy to a brand new supervillain:
the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke. In the wake of the movie's release,
fans and media outlets around the world speculated wildly about Snoke's "real identity,"
putting forth all kinds of wild theories about who he might be.
Then The Last Jedi arrived in theaters in 2017,
and not only did it provide fans with no new information about the Supreme Leader, but it
killed off the villain at the end of the second act. Snoke's identity and backstory apparently
didn't matter to the wider story, a sentiment that was only reinforced in The Rise of Skywalker,
in which Snoke is revealed to be a creation of Darth Sidious.
Though his "identity" has seemingly been answered, what little clues that fans were given about his
history and backstory were tantalizing, hinting that he and Luke Skywalker had already met
at least once in the past. Snoke may have been little more than a tool of Palpatine,
but his backstory did hold potential for future exploration — arguably, it still does.
During the events of The Rise of Skywalker,
as the movie's heroes find themselves trapped in quicksand, Finn yells this to Rey:
"Rey! Rey, I never told you-"
The entire group would miraculously emerge unscathed from the encounter,
yet for some reason Finn never felt the need to continue his train of thought. Many assumed he
wanted to say "I love you," but various comments from the cast have cast doubt on this theory.
John Boyega, who played Finn, has since confirmed that this isn't what he was supposed to say,
but he hasn't provided an alternate answer, either. Instead, fans will likely have
to continue relying on rumored reports of an overheard conversation at the film's premiere,
in which J.J. Abrams reportedly said that Finn was about to tell Rey he was force sensitive.
Finn is able to identify the command ship correctly by 'feeling' at the Battle of Exegol.
In theory, he has the potential to become a Jedi - an idea that fits well with another
open-ended plot point that appears later in the film. When the team travels to the ruins of the
second Death Star, they meet a battalion of First Order Stormtroopers who have all chosen to rebel
of their own accord, just like Finn. Though it's not stated explicitly, it is implied that each
of the former stormtroopers who rebelled did so because they were force sensitive as well. Alas,
this storyline was dropped almost immediately, and it seems unlikely that it will ever return.
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