Summary
- Luke Skywalker's experience hunting womp rats gave the Rebellion confidence to attack the Death Star in A New Hope.
- The large rodents were a well-known pest on the desert planet of Tatooine.
- Despite being referenced in the first Star Wars film, it would take decades for them to properly appear on-screen.
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope introduced many characters that would become recognizable parts of the vast space franchise. They include iconic species, from Wookiees to Rodians and, of course, the heroes of the Rebellion and the villains of the Empire. However, the events of the first Star Wars film could have been very different had it not been for the indigenous desert rodents of Tatooine.
Womp rats have been with the franchise since the beginning. Hailing from the same planet as Anakin and Luke, throwaway references and continuing nods up to The Mandalorian have entwined them with the Skywalker saga and beyond, but what exactly are womp rats?
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I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.
Luke Skywalker called on his experience hunting womp rats to give the Rebellion’s audacious plan to attack the first Death Star a crucial confidence boost. Like his father, Luke was a great pilot long before he knew of his connection to the Force. As harsh as fine-tuning his flying and shooting skills on packs of feral rodents seems, surviving on the desert planet of Tatooine wasn’t easy.
Womp rats were a persistent nuisance to moisture farmers like Luke’s uncle and aunt. In the planet’s harsh environment, the species had evolved to be large, durable, and resilient pests that plagued its humanoid neighbors. Womp rats were even recorded as swarming to attack humans, so the planet’s inhabitants had to take steps to control their numbers.
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When preparing for what would become known as the pivotal battle of Yavin, the Corellian X-Wing pilot Wedge Antilles suggests that hitting the thermal exhaust port of the Death Star would even be impossible for a computer. Fortunately, Luke’s pest control anecdote puts the Rebellion at ease, prompting General Dodonna to utter the immortal phrase, ‘Man your ships! And may the Force be with you!’
Luke’s reference to the life he’d not so long ago left behind took a more poignant turn when he later met Biggs Darklighter in the X-Wing hanger. For the two friends from Tatooine, targeting womp rats was a practical solution, as well as pilot training and sport. A deleted scene from the first Star Wars film filled in the pair’s friendship. It shows Luke running into Biggs while picking up power converters on Tatooine. When his friend tells him of his plan to switch allegiance from the Empire to the Rebellion, Luke sees no choice but to return to his uncle and aunt’s moisture farm.
When they next meet as pilots just about to take on the Empire, Biggs, who won’t survive the Death Star battle, movingly vouches for his young friend and says, ‘It’ll be like old times, Luke. They’ll never stop us.’
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Have Womp Rats Been Seen In Star Wars?
Despite the franchise having returned to Tatooine many times, Womp Rats managed to avoid the spotlight for years. Fans had to make do with hunting them in T-16 Skyhoppers in games like Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader or even taking on a Mutant Womprat as an end-of-level boss in Super Star Wars.
These games weren’t alone in filling in the gaps after Luke’s description gave the rodents a starring role in Star Wars lore. In a franchise fond of referencing itself, it’s no surprise the ever-quotable Obi-Wan added the phrase ’more than one way to skin a womp rat’ to the canon in The Clone Wars episode ‘Mystery of a Thousand Moons.’
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Still, without a clear and official image, the creatures’ appearance was extrapolated from these references in what is now the mainly non-canonical expanded universe. In the non-continuity part of the franchise under the Legends banner, Star Wars artists often ran away with impressions of particularly menacing creatures.
Arguably, the rodents’ finest hour has come in recent years, thanks to Din Djarin. In Chapter 5 of The Book of Boba Fett, the Mandalorian saves engineer Peli Motto from a womp rat that has stolen into her hanger and attacked a BD. When Motto helps Mando rebuild an N1 Starfighter, the bounty hunter takes it for a spin over Mos Eisley and into Beggar’s Canyon, where he disturbs a dozing womp rat. It’s a fan-pleasing scene referencing A New Hope and Anakin’s podracing triumph in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. But it also suggests that Luke’s claim before the Battle of Yavin was less impressive than it seemed - perhaps another one of those weaknesses that contributed to Luke’s downfall.
It’s unlikely that the womp rats will ever play a more significant role in Star Wars. But while there are undoubtedly kids honing their skills bulls-eyeing the rodents as the New Republic and then First Order rise, they will always fans will remember how their reputation was made. An excellent way to sum up the dimensions of a superweapon’s exhaust port and a connection to one of the most incredible bull's-eyes in sci-fi.
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