So, pretty much every character in the Star Wars universe, no matter how brief or small an appearance, has a name, a detailed backstory, and a dedicated entry on Wookipedia. Take, for example, the famous Cantina scene in the OG Star Wars (aka A New Hope, if you’re an utter revisionist philistine)
See this guy?
Why that’s Hem Dazon, an Arconan Scout, of course! Here, you can learn all about him here, on Wookipedia:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hem_Dazon
What about this raffish wolfman gent?
That’s frequent bar patron and Defel fortune hunter Arleil Schous, duh!
What about this rando?
Danz Borin, bounty hunter, pilot, and Wookipedia page subject.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Danz_Borin
I think you get the point, but literally, almost everyone in this relatively quick, dense scene has a whole life explored in the Star Wars expanded universe.
https://sites.google.com/site/starwarswhoswho/home/who-s-who-in-mos-eisley-cantina
Almost everyone.
There’s one guy who has no history, no known name. An anonymous figure in a 1960s era yellow pressure suit, casually walking through the background of the bar. Known only by the cryptic moniker Cantina Spaceman.
(Technically fan made on Etsy but hey, I’ll count it)
…but no backstory.
Until now.
Click me to learn the true truth behind the Cantina Spaceman!
Okay, so a little more background on this story; some of my favorite random details when researching this whole crazy thing.
The suit Cantina Spaceman dude wears is called a Windak Pressure Suit, and it’s British in origin, from the 1960’s:
https://everexcollett.wordpress.com/windak/
This led to the idea of a Cold War era teleporter experiment done by the Royal Air Force, in partnership with the United States Air Force. My personal headcanon is that the USAF didn’t want to test a potentially unstable technology on American soil, and that they partnered with the British to do it ‘safely’ across the pond, in case things went wrong.
RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge are real military bases in the UK, both had some level of involvement with the USAF as well, and they really were referred to as ‘The Twins’. They were involved in some spooky stuff in real life; both bases were the sites of UFO sightings, RAF Bentwaters in August 1956 (the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident), and RAF Woodbridge in 1980, with the Rendlesham Forest incident.
But what really sealed the deal for me as the setting for this story is that RAF Bentwaters has a structure with funky, retro-futuristic brutalist stylings affectionately known as ‘the Star Wars Building’:
From Bentwatersparks.com
So there you have it, one possible answer to the mystery of the Cantina Spaceman, and a little peek into the mad glee that goes into these kinds of short stories. If you enjoyed the story and/or this blog entry, consider joining our mailing list here! And thank you for reading!
PS: One final note, I hope anyone who reads A Spaceman Walks Into a Bar will have a very different take on this classic sound effect from 2:05 the next time they watch Star Wars…