By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
You know how Jabba the Hutt periodically punishes people by throwing them into the Sarlacc Pit? This method of execution is evidence of just how sadistic this crime lord really is. He doesn’t want to give anyone a quick death via blaster or via those cool Gamorrean axes. No, he wants those he punishes to languish in isolation, fear, and general misery, all of which makes every moment until death that much more excruciatingly painful. Well, I’ve never been executed by Jabba the Hutt, but I do have a lot of experience hanging out in a place defined by isolation, fear, and misery: it’s X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Most of my time on X is hellish for all the reasons you’d expect: monetized rage dominates your feed, while boring bluechecks pay each month to ensure we all have to see their room-temperature-IQ tweets. Every now and then, though, you find something on X that makes all the suffering worth it. For example, I learned the other day that the worst Star Wars movie almost became a black comedy because George Lucas wanted a Phantom Menace podracer’s entire family to get a dramatic introduction, just to make it weirder when he blows up!
George Lucas Is Crazier Than You Ever Imagined
When The Phantom Menace came out, some old-school Star Wars fans were annoyed by a gentle retcon to the lore. In A New Hope, Obi-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 that Anakin has piloted thus far is a podracer. Later, he finally does fly a starship, but it’s tough to see him as a great pilot in these scenes because the movie goes out of its way to confirm that Anakin is mostly just barking orders at R2-D2 and mashing random buttons like your little brother trying to play Street Fighter II.
However, in fairness to Star Wars creator and 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 that much more impressive once you see how dangerous podracing is; after all, we see one podracer, Ratts Tyerell, die a fiery death after he accidentally crashes into a wall. In the final cut of the film, this death isn’t played for laughs. But in a downright demented deleted scene, Lucas had his entire family watch him die after the announcer wished them luck!
Dying While Your Whole Family Watches
Okay, let’s be real: when I say that Ratts Tyerell’s family watched him die, what are you envisioning? Some doting parents, maybe a single, supporting family? No, my friend, it’s so much worse. His wife is there, his two older kids, and even his newborn baby! How do we know it’s a newborn? The weird, two-headed announcer specifies that she came straight from the hospital to watch her husband race. She and the kids look at Ratts with mixed hope and worry as he speeds off to what would ultimately be his final podrace. This makes his death darkly amusing while making Ratts one of the best Glup Sh*ttos in Star Wars history.
In case you don’t know, “Glup Sh*tto” is a term for obscure characters that only hardcore Star Wars fans care about. These characters usually have tons of bizarre lore, and Ratts Tyerell is no exception: 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. This organization’s sole purpose was to expose how dangerous and often illegal podracing was. His efforts were successful, and podracing was ultimately banned from the Core Worlds. This likely increased galactic interest in starship racing, which would have benefited Han Solo: canonically, he became a successful starship racer after Return of the Jedi.
An Explosive Star Wars Death
Weirdly enough, the creation of Ratts Tyerell and the decision to have his whole family (including three kids!) watch him die has made me respect George Lucas even more. In the middle of writing an epic trilogy that would straddle two millennia and change sci-fi forever, he still found the time to give a meaningless character the darkest, funniest death in the entire franchise. You know that weird noise Ratts makes right before he dies, the one you can’t stop laughing at? That was the earnest, painful cry of a man who would never even get to cradle his newborn child in his arms. Not so funny now, is it, you monster?!
(Psst. Just kidding. Ratts Tyerell dying while his whole family watches is funny as hell and should have been in the final film!)
