Star Wars "Prop" found after 46 Years

You may remember the "Krayt Dragon" seen in the original Star Wars film when C3P0 and R2D2 arrive on the planet Tatooine:

The scene, filmed in 1976, reportedly involved actor Anthony Daniels in costume as C3P0, and a large prop skeleton made of foam. The fake skeleton was left in the desert after filming. But last year, an odd fact came to light: The scene listed in Lucasfilm's records was NOT the one seen in the final film.

According to Lucas sibling and then-assistant-director Billy Bob Lucas Jr., the prop shipped to Tunisia for filming and later rediscovered by famed film archaeologist D.W. Reynolds in the 1990s was deemed "too small" to be compelling, and filming was delayed. Indeed, records newly unloaded at Disney's "Michael Eisner Memorial Cinematic Preservation Site" (a small incinerator in their basement) list the actual filming location as 20 miles south of where the original shoot was to have been filmed.

A small group of traveling Star Wars fans known as "Trekkies" headed to the site shortly after and found what they believed to be the actual remains of the Krayt Dragon prop that was used for the final film:

The story took a strange turn however when they dug up the prop and noticed that the vertebrae were not made of foam:

Indeed, the entire 50ft long skeleton was not a prop, but the image seen in the original movie was, in fact, a genuine colossal skeleton. Lucasfilm prop master Roger Pagan was asked for comment and took a break from filming on "Battlefield Earth 2: The AfterMathematics" to answer. According to Pagan, "Yeah the prop was too small so we headed into the desert where some locals said there was already a big skeleton. We found it, figured it was a whale, shot the scene and headed out."

Analysis however found that the vertebra was not from a whale, but rather a reptile. Nor was it a fossil, but seems to have only died in the late 1800s, suggesting that indeed, a species of undiscovered 50ft reptiles is currently dwelling in the Tunisian desert.

Asked for comment, George Lucas himself explained, "That's nothing, that trash compactor creature was just caught from an LA sewer and we set it free there when we were done filming. Ever feel something weird on your butt on the toilet? That's our Dylan."

Okay so I only learned this about canon a couple years ago and yes I keep bringing up AUs where Obi-Wan farms krayt pearls from Tatooine to send to Quinlan through the rebellion so they can give them to master and Padawan pairs so they can have lightsabers because the pearls can be used as a replacement, (and I even have a much more in depth one where Shmi didn’t die and Anakin didn’t fall but the Empire still rose and they retreated to Tatooine with a bunch of crechlings and Obi-Wan uses a seeing chamber to locate actual places that a force user in need of a Pearl will end up so you know you can go SO much more in depth with this) but I just had the best idea ever!!!

Obi-Wan and Anakin go to Tatooine before Ilum when Anakin is 12 and getting his first crystal (this is an EU canon okay he didn’t make his first saber till 12 and in the same comics Obi-Wan thought about how he’d leave the Jedi if Anakin didn’t want to be here) and Obi-Wan is all ‘you know what? The council being stupid as shit we gonna go free Miss Shmi and get her to safety and have a long talk before Ani gets his crystal idk maybe we’ll take her with us’ and so they go there and free her.

But before they can even discuss the next steps in all their lives, Ani is all ‘oh shit Obi’s getting the force pull look on his face, make sure we got water and rations he wanders far when he gets that look’ and they all go on A Hunt and when Obi-Wan finally comes back to himself he’s cooing at a Krayt (also an EU canon he tamed a fucking krayt a tribe asked him to kill because Good Girls Get Loves Not Death) while Anakin and Shmi just give him this look of HORROR and after he’s finished taming his bestest lizard girl EVER (till he meets Boga) the krayt gives him a damaged Pearl and at first Ani and Shmi think they’re gonna sell it or something but instead Obi-Wan gets out all the parts to construct a new saber they brought for Ani and is all ‘cool now let’s break this thing down it’s damaged and can last a few sabers for both of us’ and that’s why they have twin blue blades and Shmi is smuggled into the temple as a new mechanic and Anakin and Obi-Wan’s twin blade AU is now also an Anakin and Obi-Wan twin sons of the twin suns AU and they are happy and Anakin is a happy lad.

The mudhorn one is probably my fave just because of that cheeky little jawa. Pack 1 : Original Trilogy Pack 2 : Prequel Pack 3 : Sequel Pack 4 : Fallen Order Pack 6 : Other

Krayt Dragon from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars Giants

The Mandalorian has been doing right by me because it’s giving me giant monsters! The Mythosaur being just the latest addition!

Also, Zillo Beast! Thank you Bad Batch!

I’m rewatching Mandalorian and wow I love how this show de-villified the Tusken raiders/sand people.

They’re still portrayed as a brutal group, and their attacks and killings aren’t ignored, but The Mandalorian gives them layers that were never shown in the movies. We get to see them conduct trade, protect each other, and struggle with the more dangerous aspects of the desert. They have a rich history. They have their own sign language. They have pet dogs. And suddenly they seem like people instead of monsters.

It’s a great reminder that just because you can’t see someone’s face, doesn’t mean they don’t have one. Which I guess is fitting for a show with a main character whose face is always hidden.

Absolutely no one asked this week, but you’re getting another Fun Fact. Today You Learned about the krayt dragon skeleton. Long before appearing in The Mandalorian, the krayt dragon was a creature in Star Wars mythology. It’s a large predator that lives on Tatooine. And we see part of the skeleton of one in the very first Star Wars movie! From A New Hope:

So Fun Fact, when they wrapped shooting that movie, they didn’t bother to pick up that prop. When Lucasfilm was filming that Tatooine scenes for Attack of the Clones decades later, they visited the same spot where they made that shot, and the prop skeleton was still there.

Nuts, huh?

THE MANDALORIAN: The Krayt Dragon

run bro !!!! get outta there !!!!!

Grogu was amazed at how many critters there were in the galaxy. He didn’t mean total population either. He meant types of critters. There were an amazing number of types of critters. Why just some types of flying critters numbered over 100,000 species. He’d been told that was a really big number and he believed it. 

There were at least 17 different ravinak variants and that was just on Pagodon. They liked ice planets for some weird reason. That meant Hoth, Krownest, and that stupid frozen moon they’d crashed on, were all habitat for the critters and according to the Galactic Encyclopedia there were over fifty known planets and moons that hosted various ravinak populations. None of them were friendly, by the way.

But Din Djarin telling him about the ravinak had made Grogu curious and he had started thinking about all the other critters he’d met. The little Gorvin Snu came to mind. They were tiny lizard critters. He’d met them a bunch of times on Arvala-7. They were cute and their tongues tickled you if they tasted you (don’t ask how he knew that).

Then there were also Blurrg’s, Mudhorns, and Sorgan frogs. All on that kind of desert-ish world. He still didn’t understand how he Mudhorns survived or where the mud even came from. There hadn’t been a lot of open water there. It had never rained while he was there. The Mandalorian said it must come from an artesian spring. Grogu supposed that was possible, but he was still surprised at it. Especially since the frogs really liked a wet environment, like when they went to Sorgan. 

He’d liked Sorgan. There were a lot of different critters there too and it made more sense. The place was green. It had water. There were trees to provide canopy for all sorts of critters to hide in and under. Birds of course, then the gringer (whatever that was, Grogu had never seen one and there were no vids of them), krill, Loth-cats (oy), and of course the Sorgan Frog. Yum. Sorgan frogs were so tasty. He liked them fresh, but you could actually get them as a freeze dried breakfast treat and he liked that as well.

Then, well, let’s see. He’d met barghest, rancor’s, womp rats, bantha, eopie, the mamacore, and the list just goes on and on. He liked meeting critters. Like Ranky, the rancor that Boba Fett had trained on Tatooine. Rancor’s didn’t just live on Tatooine. They lived on Dathomir, Felucia, and Vodran as well. 

Apparently rancors were originally from Dathomir but were brought to other planets to act as guards and protectors. Grogu was pretty sure that the people who did that weren’t thinking very clearly.  Planets are pretty delicate when you got right down to it and a big critter like a rancor would end up taking over for other native critters. Although it would be hard to do that on Tatooine where Krayt dragons sat at the top of the critter world and ruled there fairly ruthlessly. 

That was another mystery. How could a critter like a Krayt dragon get so big on a desert planet like Tatooine? It wasn’t from eating frogs, that was for sure. Peli Motto had told him that biologists theorized that Krayt dragons ate tons of microscopic algae that grew on the sand deposits around Tatooine and that’s what allowed them to get so huge. But it was only a theory because Peli hadn’t ever seen that biologist again. Apparently they were going out to the north Dune sea to do their research and ran into some problems. At least that’s what the Jawas told Peli. 

Grogu was of the opinion that somethings should just remain a mystery. 

I'M ALIVE. Just been busy and focusing on my mental health. Have some droogon sketches

Have you ever actually gone pearl hunting in fairly untouched areas? Yeah so oyster’s can have upwards of 20 pearls in them.

Krayt dragons eat rocks much like dinosaurs used to and I’m sure certain animals today do, because rubbing them against what they eat in their stomach is a vital part of their digestive process. Without these rocks inside they can’t properly eat their food cause it doesn’t crush up right. By this usage they probably eat a ton of rocks a year. Like tons of them.

These rocks, when retrieved, (harvested from their nests or their corpse) are now perfectly smooth and round and force imbued, canonically, these pearls, which started as normal rocks, can be used as lightsaber crystals for VERY powerful sabers, and can sell for upwards of 100k credits, all of which implies the Krayt itself is actually force imbued somehow.

On Tatooine, Ben was asked to slay a Krayt dragon that had been eating people. Instead, Ben calmed and soothed it. He let it live.

All of this leads me to a few conclusions: Ben Kenobi who lives on Tatooine as the richest bitch in the system (because he’s farming like 20 pearls a week from his buddy to pay for her meals) who’s terrorizing Jabba the Hutt by hiring Mandalorian bounty hunters to take his forces out. He’s even taking out other Hutts in the system because they’re trying to help Jabba. Ben has a Krayt dragon on call and is letting Jabba know it by force. He’s ready to take that bitch down and end slavery in a single strike.

Also he’s fixing up pearls so he can send them to Bail with instructions to send them to ‘the nearest Jedi in - system’ because he’s meditating with them so the force tells him where they’re goin. He’s helpin Jedi keep their sabers n givin the new kiddos them too.

Also Hondo is probably there as his middle man. Even if Vader was directly confronted by knowing Hondo’s working with Ben, he’s probably gonna go ‘not today, Satan’ and walk off. He’s not equipped to deal with that one.

There is something about The Book of Boba Fett in connection to The Mandalorian that doesn’t leave me alone. (Especially when I try not to think about how the series could have been improved, but that’s beside the point here):

What if the spice train is/was the reason the Krayt Dragon went through Mos Pelgo/Freetown?

Let’s look at the facts:

The whole ordeal with the train and the Tuskens was timeline wise before The Mandalorian even started.

It was established in The Mandalorian Season 2x1 that Krayts react to vibrations in the ground.

The Tuskens studied the Krayt and its behaviour for generations, yet it still surprised them.

A settlement with that kind of threat would not have survived as long - even if the path was conveniently sized for the Krayt.

So in conclusion: Even if the train hovered, it must have caused massive vibrations.

Therefore - depending on the territory a greater krayt calls its own - it might as well have been that this one diverted its original course to get away from the train. And instead found Freetown ...

Or!

It’s original path went through Freetown - hence the space between buildings - and the train diverted it for a while, only for it to get back once the train was stopped.

No idea, if this is just my imagination or was intentional or is just a coincidence, but I think its neat!

I would barbecue a Krayt Dragon, garnish with salt and pepper with a drizzle of hot sauce and side of garlic bread, I would keep the skull as a trophy

Mando vs The Krayt Dragon by kpetchock