The Monstrefact: Life on Star Wars' Utapau

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the lifeforms of the planet Utapau, as seen in “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
Over the weekend, I like a lot of you, went
to see two thousand and five Star Wars Episode three,

(00:29):
Revenge of the Sith on the big screen, taking in
the culmination of the Clone War, the fall of the Republic,
and the death of the Jedi Order. It's a dark
tale for many younger viewers, perhaps the first tragic story
arc they ever saw, and one that still ruminates on
the state of our own world. Since the film is

(00:49):
perhaps fresh on many listeners' minds, I thought today might
be a good day to turn our attention to the
fauna of the planet Urdapao, where Obi Wan Kenobi finally
hunts down General Grievous. Far from just another desert or
forest world, Utipaal is delightfully weird and fittingly morose for
the darkest Star Wars film entry. As described in Star

(01:13):
Wars Galactic Maps, written by Emily Fortune, It's a dry,
windswept world quote pock marked with giant sinkholes into which
the oceans drain, and its underground cities built from millions
of animal bones. Matthew Stover, in his novelization of the film,
describes these sinkholes as being the size of inverted mountains,

(01:35):
the interior walls riddled with industry and urbanization. The planet
is home to two sentient species, the diminutive uta, serving
as the planet's labor cast, and the tall, gaunt, carnivorous pollens.
According to Star Wars Alien Archive, written by Natalie Club
and Katrina Palante, the long lived pollens originally lived on

(01:57):
the planet's surface till a climate forced them underground to
live with the Utah, but given their sensitive vision, the
pollens were more than happy to abandon the surface world
for the pits. Likewise, their sensitive hearing required them to
wear special dampeners, perhaps due to the loud echoes of
life in the sink whole cities of Utapao. The pollens

(02:20):
in the Utah domesticated at least two different native reptile
species to serve as their steeds, the winged dactylians that
we might compare to some of Earth's larger terosaurs and
the scampering verractyls both are adept at navigating the sinkholes
of Utapal, the dactylians by flight and the use of
the pit's thermal updrafts, and the verractyls via their wide

(02:42):
gate and five toed feet. Obi Wan famously makes use
of a verractyl in his pursuit of general grievous. We're
also told that a huge noss monsters live in the
planet's sink whole bounds surface lakes and rivers. Here on Earth,
we also have sinkhole ecosystems. As Laura Bicker describes in

(03:02):
a twenty twenty four article for BBC, China's giant sinkholes
are a tourist hit, but ancient forests insider at risk. Quote.
These cavities in the Earth trapped time, preserving unique, delicate
ecosystems for centuries. These environments, generally caused by the dissolution
of soluble bedrock like limestone, by ground water or even

(03:23):
underground rivers, have been found to contain unique organisms, especially plants,
and sometimes serve as naturally protected habitats for endangered flora
and fauna. So while we may often think of sinkholes
as natural pitfalls of destruction, sometimes harboring the bones of
animals that fell inside them. They can also serve as refuges,

(03:46):
so it's perhaps fitting that the sinkholes of Uodapaal came
to serve as a last redoubt for much of the
planet's life. It's also interesting, though perhaps unintended, that the
planet's decimated surface and life sustaining sinkholes resembles the state
of life on the republic slash Imperial capital world of Coruscant,
where in place of biological life, one single vast city

(04:10):
covers the surface of the planet, and deep vertical ventilation
shafts dive down to starports and an entire undercity far beneath.
During the days of the Galactic Empire, these depths even
harbored some of the remaining embers of the Rebellion. Tune
in for additional episodes of The Monster, Fact, The Artifact,

(04:31):
or Animaliustupendium each week. As always, you can email us
at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.