Jawas: Short, Foul, and Fascinating

NOTE: I've checked the thread index and have found nothing regarding Jawas -- can you believe it? All, please direct us to another Jawa thread, if one exists. Otherwise, I'll be proud to host the forum's only spot for Jawa jabber!

Let's talk about Jawas.

Apart from what the Official Site or the DK Visual Dictionary might have to say about these short, foul denizens of Tatooine, just going purely on their appearance in ANH, I find them fascinating and mysterious, and conceptually quite cool. Their role as scavengers of the deserts carries a sense of realism -- evoking the cycle of life, in that there must exist species which feed off the refuse of others -- while their glowing eyes and spooky cowls impart a feeling of adventure and fantasy, even horror -- or at least revulsion. Jawas, as presented in Episode IV, seem repulsive, don't they? -- as if they would stink up the Jundland Wastes something fierce. Indeed, some of them appear to be clad in little more than shredded rags. Yet somehow -- perhaps it's that high-pitched "Hoo-teenee!" -- they come across as cute, even adorable, despite their wretchedness.

Without consulting the Visual Dictionary (which I will do summarily, if someone doesn't beat me to it!), there appear to be two types: short and squat; and slender and slightly taller. (I understand this is due to the fact that some of the actors portraying the Jawas were children, and some were little people.) This pairing of forms conveys a sense of biological reality: perhaps, as in many terrestrial species, the taller ones are the females. Incidentally, this physiological dimorphism is also consistent with ancient legends of elves and dwarves, as well as post-modern accounts of alien visitation and abduction (as in the Grays and their Helpers.)

I'll start the thread off with two stories about Jawas that are close to my heart. The first is that in the summer of 1977, when STAR WARS was first released, an actual actor from the movie in an actual Jawa outfit came and visited my afterschool daycare at the YMCA. I kid you not! He was one of the child actors, not a little person, and evidently he had grown somewhat since the filming of his scenes; I remember looking up at him in wonder, that a Jawa would be taller than me. I also remember attentively observing the device that made his eyes seem to glow from the depths of his hood: it was a just a block of plastic or wood with black fabric stretched over it, and two lightbulbs connected to a power source that he wore on his belt. On subsequent viewings of the movie, I imagined that this is in fact what the Jawas looked like under their hoods: that their faces were blocks of plastic with bulbs for eyes. Cybernetic, somehow!

The second connection is that Don Coscarelli, the director of PHANTASM, BEAST MASTER, and BUBBA HOTEP, who is an acquaintance of mine (I inked the PHANTASM comic books, etc.), tells a funny story about the making of PHANTASM, which features Jawa-like little creatures running around in brown, pointed hoods. In any case, Don was in the middle of production on the film when he saw the trailer for STAR WARS, and got an eyeful of these little creatures that looked just like his! He was upset that someone had visualized and filmed his own dream imagery, but lacked the budget to change his creatures so late in the game. A crew member tried to cheer Don up, reminding him that science fiction movies made very little money; no one would see STAR WARS, anyway, so what did it matter? Well, we can all guess the ending of this tale. Still, PHANTASM was also a big success in 1979, Don's hooded men come off as more menacing than the Jawas, and no critic even remarked on the repetition of imagery.

Tell me your own Jawa stories, if any, and discuss their various nefarious characteristics. Let's talk about Jawas!

 

I dunno, I never thought of the Jawa's as foul. Even before the PT, I saw the sand people as brutal wretches and the Jawa's as little pack rats who used some ingenuity to survive. They never really are shown as hurting anyone...they just collect stray droids, parts, and machines to sell to the locals. They didn't blow up R2D2, they just stunned him. I imagine that many a Jawa was lunch for the sand people. ;(

Carnage

 

Finally! We Jawas are getting the attention we deserve!

 

I guess "foul" refers to their smell...


Official Jawa Thread

 

I always thought Jawa's was sort of cool with their beety little eyes. And they did Tatooine tons of service by picking up strays and selling them.

 

Sure, Jawas are packrats: the salient word being rat. (Like rats, they somehow manage to be cute and nasty at the same time!) And of course they only stunned R2 -- they wouldn't want to damage their re-sell merchandise!

Lunch for Sandpeople, you say? You might be onto something! Imagine Jawas roasting over a spit at a Tusken campsite. Perhaps Jawas are the original "Bantha fodder"....

The DK Visual Dictionary has this to say about our creepy, bandolier-laden scavengers:

Concealed in dark robes that protect them from the twin suns, the timid and acquisitive Jawas scavenge scrap metal, lost droids, and equipment from refuse or the many crashed spaceships that dot the desert landscapes of Tatooine. Their glowing eyes help them see in the dark crevices where they hide, and their rodent-like faces are remarkably ugly. While there are a few Jawa settlements, most Jawas patrol the dunes and dusty rocks in gigantic sandcrawlers, ancient vehicles from a mining era long ago. Jawas can offer real bargains in the junk that they repair, but are notriously tricky and will swindle the unwary buyer.

More Jawa facts to come!!

 

For me and my fellow eight year old cousins the debate between Jawas vs. Ewoks as the coolest little guys in the saga was quite hot in the early 80's. I was definately on the Jawa side. They were just more interesting; they travelled in that amazing transport, they were merchants, had anti-Artoo artilery and REALLY cool eyes. In 1983, as an eight year old, there was no contest. Jawas are one of the things about ANH that still make you smile as if you're seeing it for the first time.

 

Jawas are definatly one of the most intriguing and fascinating creatures of SW. A little sad we didn't see more of them in the PT.
[image=http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/StarWars/images/BookImages/jawat.jpg]

 

Why, you could say they were highly important to the plot of AotC. They got Duel of the Fates there, so they must be!

 

You're sure right about that!

But I still wish we could see them more in the PT.

 

Great...thanks! Now I'm gonna be staring at that every time I watch the movie!

Seriously though, I've always wondered what a real jawa would look like under there. Do they have black faces, or are their glowing eyes casting a silhouette on their face? Grand_Moff_Jawa, do you care to elaborate on what you look like?

I've always felt that they were as you said, very foul, with a stench of a filthy mangy stray dog. You'd sneeze and your allergies would act up if you got to close to them. No offense Grand_Moff_Jawa

 

The jawas were AWESOME!!! I mean just think about it...they are the SW equivellant of salvage yard guys...and one of those guys helped me rebuild a carbeurator once...I told him he reminded me of one of those awesome jawas from star wars...he picked his nose, wiped it on his breast pocket, and said "What's a jawa"?

I said, "Awesome!!"

 

I must say I do get a kick out of their "Swindler" side. (Red R2 Unit starts approaching Luke and Uncle Owen and blows up.) "Uncle Owen, this R2 unit has a bad motivator!" "What kind of junk are you trying to sell me?" (Jawa makes Jawa noise and shrugs his shoulder like "I didn't know! I swear!") Haha. That cracked me up. I think the little scammers think they are smarter than the backwater Tatooine farmers.

Carnage

 

More Jawa factoids from the DK Visual Dictionary:

Jawa recycling talents are legendary. If a droid is too battered even for Jawas to repair, it is cannabalized for spare parts. New owners who open up a droid bought from Jawas may find internal parts of which its makers never dreamed.

Droids that wander off or get thrown out as junk are favorite targets for the Jawas. Jawas always carry restraining bolts which they install to claim itinerant droids. A magnetic suction tube draws captured droids into the bowels of a roving sandcrawler.

Scoured and rusted from countless sandstorms and the blistering suns, sandcrawlers hold droid prisons, mineral ore and metal processors, and wrecked or salvaged junk of every kind.

Though some posters here (including myself!) have opined that Jawas perform the necessary functions of cleaning up the deserts and recycling old materials, it occurs to me that there is also a nefarious, even criminal quality to the Jawas' modus operandi. An ethical person/creature would seek to return lost robots to their rightful owners -- for surely the technology exists by which to track the origins of most, in not all, droids.

Jawas' activities may be functional in a general, planet-wide sense, but they are nonetheless amoral, even immoral, in their appropriation and redistribution of goods that belong to others.

In a sense, this puts Jawas on par with smugglers and bounty hunters. They are not vicious like Sandpeople or, say, Walrus Men, but like them Jawas operate outside the law and the circles of respectable society.