By Chris Snellgrove | Published
You know how Jabba the Hutt occasionally punishes people by throwing them into a Sarlacc pit? This method of execution is proof that this crime lord is really cruel. He doesn't want to give anyone a quick death with a blaster or with those cool Gamorrean axes. No, he wants those he punishes to feel alone, afraid, and generally miserable, all of which make every minute until death more painful. Well, I never got killed by Jabba the Hutt, but I did do he has a lot of experience in an area defined by isolation, fear, and grief: by X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.
Most of my time on X is hell for all the reasons you'd expect: the frenzy of making money dominates your feed, while boring bluechecks pay monthly to ensure we all have to see their room-temperature-IQ tweets. Every now and then, though, you find something in X that makes all the trouble worth it. For example, I read the other day that the worst Star Wars movie was almost a black comedy because George Lucas wanted The Phantom Menace the entire podracer family for an amazing introduction, just to be weird when he explodes!
George Lucas is Crazier Than You Ever Thought
When The Phantom Menace came out, some old-school Star Wars fans were offended by the mild repetition of the lore. In A New HopeObi-Wan Kenobi insists that Anakin Skywalker was already an amazing pilot when they first met. But in TPM, we see that the closest thing to a starfighter Anakin has tested so far is a podracer. Later, finally it does he flies the star, but it's hard to see him as the main pilot in these scenes because the movie goes out of its way to make sure that Anakin is always barking orders at R2-D2 and mashing random buttons like your little brother trying to play. Street Fighter II.
However, in fairness to the creator of Star Wars again The Phantom Menace director George Lucas, the podracing scenes were probably the second coolest thing about this first prequel (first place obviously goes to the big lightsaber duel at the end). Anakin seems very impressed when you see how dangerous podracing is; after all, we see one podracer, Ratts Tyerell, die a fiery death after accidentally crashing into a wall. In the final scene of the film, this death is not played for laughs. But in a deleted scene, Lucas asked his entire family to watch him die after the announcer wished them luck!
Dying When Your Whole Family Is Watching
Okay, let's be real: when I say Ratts Tyerell's family is watching him die, what do you think? Other single parents, maybe a single, supportive family? No, my friend, it is so it's very bad. His wife is there, his two older children, even his newborn baby! How do we know it's a newborn? The strange, two-headed announcer explains that she came from the hospital to see her husband running. He and the kids looked at Ratts with mixed hope and concern as he raced towards what would eventually be his last podrace. This makes his death funny while making Ratts one of the best Glup Sh*ttos in Star Wars history.
In case you don't know, “Glup Sh*tto” is an obscure slang term that only Star Wars fans care about. These characters usually have tons of weird stuff, and Ratts Tyerell is no different: in the books, we find out that his son, Deland Tyerell, was so traumatized by his father's death that he created the Ratts Tyerell Foundation. The purpose of this organization was to show that podracing was dangerous and often illegal. His efforts were successful, and podracing was eventually banned from Core Worlds. This may have increased the galactic interest in the star race, which would have benefited Han Solo: literally, he became the successful star race behind Return of the Jedi.
Explosive Star Wars Death
Ironically, the creation of Ratts Tyerell and the decision to have his entire family (including three children!) watch the legacy made me respect George Lucas even more. In the midst of writing an epic trilogy that would span two thousand years and change sci-fi forever, he still found time to give a purposeless character a very dark, very funny death in the whole country. You know that weird sound Ratts makes before he dies, the one you can't stop laughing at? That was the honest and painful complaint of a man who would never be able to hug his newborn child. Not so funny now, is it, you monster?!
(Psst. Just kidding. Ratts Tyerell dying while his whole family watches is hilarious hell and he should have been in the last movie!)
