Pablo Hidalgo Talks About the Aliens in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

One of the most fascinating aspects of each Star Wars movie has always been the introduction of many new alien species, that really makes you believe that there is a huge galaxy far far away with many different inhabitants. The Star Wars creature shop team always manages to come up with some creative creature designs for each Star Wars movie, and Rogue One was no exception to this. While the alien creatures in the first spin-off film didn’t get much screen time, still there were some memorable additions to the Star Wars galaxy.

 

 

StarWars.com posted a very interesting interview with Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo, discussing some of the aliens from Rogue One that are also featured in his latest book Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide.

 

From StarWars.com:

 

StarWars.com: Thanks a bunch for taking time to talk to us about the aliens of Rogue One, Pablo! After seeing Rogue One, I, like I’m sure many others, had so many questions about those new guys roaming in the background. There’s one in particular that I recall from the first trailer — he’s lying in the bed across from Jyn in prison and he has these glorious tentacles protruding from his face. Who is this guy and what can you tell us about him or his species?

Pablo Hidalgo: Well, one thing to clarify that he is actually a she. The novelization of Rogue One by Alexander Freed clarified that Jyn’s cellmate calls herself Nail. In prison, I guess it’s worthwhile to have a tough nickname. Turns out everyone else calls her “Kennel” because she’s got parasites. Her “real” name is Oolin Musters. And she is played by Kiran Shah (a man, but hey, that’s acting for you).

 

 

StarWars.com: Any idea why this new creature was chosen for this scene rather than a more familiar one?

Pablo Hidalgo: I know that this creature was originally designed to be a pedestrian in the streets of Jedha City. I don’t know if becoming a prisoner on Wobani is a promotion exactly, but at least Nail gets some more screen-time. Another bit of trivia for you: this alien’s production nickname was “Blue Top.”

 

 

StarWars.com: I couldn’t stop thinking about that gal, so I’m glad we got that out of the way. There aren’t too many non-human characters in Rogue One that get a significant amount of screen time, but we do get a lot of Two Tubes action. Edrio and Benthic are to me, terrifying, which makes me love them even more. These two are described as Tognath “egg mates,” not necessarily brothers. Can you explain what that means?

Pablo Hidalgo: Tognath hatch from eggs that nurture in a suspension jelly. While in that jelly, two or more eggs might graft together and create a bond that continues throughout their life. But, those eggs don’t have to come from the same parent.

 

 

StarWars.com: Another new alien we get to see a bit of is Pao. Pao is my favorite Rogue One character (and maybe one of my favorite alien designs of all time), but after seeing the movie I knew so little about him. Well, aside from the fact that he likes to scream battle cries with his gigantic Muppet-like mouth. Is this typical of his species, the Drabatans?

Pablo Hidalgo: I think Pao may be a bit more gung ho than your average Drabatan, but I hope his people would be be proud to consider him a representative of their species. One story idea I wanted to put in the Ultimate Visual Guide was that he had a mild-mannered civilian life prior to joining the Rebellion. He was an engineer who felt he had to do something about the Empire.

 

 

StarWars.com: One of the aliens that was getting a huge buzz, particularly after Star Wars Celebration Europe, was Bistan, or “Space Monkey,” as we lovingly called him. I, for one, did not expect he would make actual monkey noises, so that was a pleasant surprise. The planet Iakar is described as a jungle where Bistan would swing from tree to tree. If we visited Iakar, would there be a bunch of swinging monkeys or are the Iakaru more human-like on the day-to-day? Since Bistan wears a sweet space suit I could imagine they at least wear clothes while they’re swinging?

Pablo Hidalgo: Though they’re not a space age people, I don’t see them as primitives. They’re beyond Ewok technology but maybe not as technically inclined as Wookiees. Also, I think Bistan is probably wilder than the average Iakaru.

By the way, I named the Iakaru after the Amazonian uakari monkey, but in doing so, I created the potential for the most misspelled alien name ever, since people are inclined to read that capital “I” in Iakaru as a lower-case “L”. Sorry, everyone.

 

 

StarWars.com: Aside from the new guys, we see the return of some familiar alien faces, as well. There are both Twi’leks and Mon Calamari in Rogue One. We talked a bit about the new Mon Cals in a previous post, was there any specific reason for making them the new polar variety?

Pablo Hidalgo: The color design came from production; I rationalized it by making it specific to an environment. But I love the idea of diversity within an alien species. We’ve seen a wider variety of Mon Cal colors in The Clone Wars than just the red ones. I think having the colorful ones be from tropical environs and the black-and-white ones be from colder extremes work with Raddus’ no-nonsense personality. It also allows for someone to make “cold fish” jokes.

 

 

StarWars.com: Speaking of Saw’s gang, it’s hard to miss Moroff trudging through the crowded streets of Jedha. We know this guy’s a hired gun. Is that common for the Gigoran species or are they ever gentle giants, too?

Pablo Hidalgo: For Moroff’s species, I reached back to the old Expanded Universe lore and plucked a very obscure alien from the old roleplaying game. There was a character named Rollos who was a Gigoran in a 1994 story. They have a lot in common with Wookiees in that they’re often exploited for their strength, but a few tough ones have found a way to make that work for them by becoming brutes for hire. So the ones you’re more likely to run across in the galaxy are thugs, as we saw in the Doctor Aphra comic.

 

 

Make sure to go to StarWars.com for the full interview. Also if you are interested in Pablo’s visual guide, you can order it from Amazon here. We are not affiliated to anyone but it’s indeed a very interesting read, expanding greatly on the story from the movie. And right now it costs only $14.

 

 

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Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.

Born on April 24, 1980.

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Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.Born on April 24, 1980.

60 thoughts on “Pablo Hidalgo Talks About the Aliens in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

  • January 14, 2017 at 5:51 pm
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    I just loved how much more expanded and detailed was Hidalgo’s R1 Visual Dictionary than the episode VII one.

    • January 15, 2017 at 6:17 pm
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      I just got my R1 visual and Art Of books today and I love both of them. Here, we get to know more of the aliens and background more. Surprised that they combine the Cross-Section to the Visual Dictionary. I hope they do this for all for SW movies.

      • January 17, 2017 at 12:20 am
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        Yeah, that was definitely a good add-on!

  • January 14, 2017 at 6:01 pm
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    I hope we will see in future movies more aliens with bigger roles

    • January 14, 2017 at 9:21 pm
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      I feel this is a current Star Wars problem. The films are not giving protagonism to anything but humans and droids. Rogue One could have been the perfect opportunity to have a REALLY diverse galactic team. On the other hand, the TV shows are doing a great job! This is the next step the Star Wars franchise needs to take in the movies!

      • January 14, 2017 at 9:49 pm
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        Exactly!, I really hope next movies fix this, new SW movies are laking diversity, other species have just little roles or serve as background only.

        • January 14, 2017 at 10:44 pm
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          #StarwarsSoHuman

        • January 14, 2017 at 11:02 pm
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          That’s SPECIESIST!!

        • January 15, 2017 at 6:17 am
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          Alien Lives Matter

      • January 14, 2017 at 10:52 pm
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        I feel like they traded that for human diversity and probably to save some money too.

      • January 15, 2017 at 12:38 am
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        Yeah all those Aliens seen in the Rebellion in ANH…oh wait.

        • January 15, 2017 at 6:17 am
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          Not really a valid argument when you consider that Chewie is an alien and features throughout the entire movie in spite of the obviously limited budget.

          • January 15, 2017 at 10:51 am
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            But keeping it consistent with ANH.

          • January 15, 2017 at 6:55 pm
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            ANH was STAR WARS movie when they didn’t know exactly what they want from STAR WARS.Aliens were just creepy creatures in the background

          • January 15, 2017 at 8:30 pm
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            Yes, but still R1 kept it consistent.

          • January 17, 2017 at 9:09 pm
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            Is it bad that I like that line up better than the final team?

      • January 15, 2017 at 5:26 am
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        That’s exactly why I love Rebels TV show

    • January 15, 2017 at 10:04 am
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      There’s also an enormous benefit to creating alien protagonists: you don’t have to worry about movie timelines corresponding to the age of the actor inside the costume. They can put Chewbacca or Bistan in another Star Wars movie 30 years down the line if they want.

      • January 15, 2017 at 10:35 pm
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        Didn’t Bistan get shot down in the U-Wing?

        • January 16, 2017 at 2:46 am
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          Yeah, but you could always make a movie about Bistan during the Clone Wars or something.

          • January 16, 2017 at 7:35 am
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            I wouldn’t be opposed to that, as long as we learn that Bistan could secretly speak perfect Basic.

  • January 14, 2017 at 6:37 pm
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    The aliens in this movie just make you want to find out more about them. I would say I got a few new faves here and Moroff is definitely one.

  • January 14, 2017 at 7:53 pm
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    I would love to see more aliens like Sebulba, Watto, or Dexter Jettster in the future, and more mix between aliens an humans. In the new movies most of the (few) aliens are in the background and/or with little screen time.

    • January 15, 2017 at 12:39 am
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      Yes and I am sure if they did what you wanted, some people would be on here and other places complaining the opposite argument.

      • January 15, 2017 at 6:08 am
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        Yeah, probably. Sebulba, Watto, and Dexter Jester are three of my least favorite characters. But I do have to give some credit for Sebulba’s whacked anatomy.

        • January 16, 2017 at 12:19 am
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          Watto is one of my favorite characters. I would like more CGI aliens. With CGI they can create some crazy looking aliens that can not be done with masks.

          • January 17, 2017 at 7:35 pm
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            CGI have unlimited posibilities, with masks the bad thing IMO is that creatures/aliens have a very limited range of everything, begining with facial expression. there is no reason now tho have that limits, there were reasons in the 70s, but today they have more tools.

            In RO there is Pao, this poor little guy has always angry face, and only can be mouth open or mouth closed. I saw his CGI version in the battlefront trailer, and in my opinion looks more fresh and live in CGI, and less frozen or dry.

        • January 17, 2017 at 7:24 pm
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          The thing with this kind of alien is that they don`t have to be limited to actors in disguise to make them, and can result in a more interesting anatomy.

      • January 16, 2017 at 12:08 am
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        Is that a bad thing? 🙂

      • January 18, 2017 at 1:34 am
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        it is possible, but I think maybe there would be less people complaing about that, I think if they change a few humans for aliens, and even cgi aliens it would be accepted and embraced largely because CGI can be pulled off a lot better than 10 years ago.

        With prequels the complains were not about having too much aliens, but about other stuff, no one said jar jar looked fake but that he was to anoying, and besides CGI is much better now, with the new movies they want to look as much as possible like the OT, that means (no obvious CGI) like creatures too different from humans, not as main characters at least.

        • January 18, 2017 at 5:32 am
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          Yes I am sure nobody would be complaining on a message/comment board somewhere. 😉

          • January 18, 2017 at 7:16 pm
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            yea, who would do that?!

    • January 14, 2017 at 10:30 pm
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      he’s probably the jar jar of his species. 😉

      • January 15, 2017 at 4:39 am
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        MEESA SEE ITSA TRAP

  • January 14, 2017 at 10:12 pm
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    I´d really would like to have seen more of Moreoff, he should be one of the Rogue One´s

    • January 14, 2017 at 10:17 pm
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      second though: bet he would be a white chewbacca, and the whiners would whine about “moreoff being a ripoff”, whine day and night for decades

    • January 15, 2017 at 10:02 am
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      The movie really needed more Bistan and Pao, I thought.

  • January 14, 2017 at 10:29 pm
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    there goes pablo pushing his blue mon cal agenda again.(sarcasm)

  • January 14, 2017 at 10:50 pm
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    Vast improvement over TFA far as alien representation goes and hope this sets the bar higher for VIII. I’d still like to see a film where the humans are a minority and every character seen onscreen is alien.

    • January 15, 2017 at 5:40 am
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      Ew.

    • January 16, 2017 at 1:37 am
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      I agree. I dont understand why they dont take advantage of aliens species as main characters. It makes the visuals more interesting. The concept art for the team in R1 looked great with the aliens but after seeing it I understand why the team are humans (as they had to infiltrate an Imperial base and blend in).
      But I want more alien characters in main roles. They dont even have to be extreme make ups (I understand actors want their face shown), we could have twileks, zabracks etc.
      Look at Ahsoka, I think one reason her character has become so popular is because she is an alien; simply making the visuals of the shows more interesting.

      • January 16, 2017 at 8:11 am
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        If anything good comes from Han Solo. It’s that there is a good chance more aliens will be involved given who Han is and what his background is in.

  • January 14, 2017 at 11:55 pm
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    Compared to GL Star Wars movies there are almost no aliens. I feel they havent hit the right balance between real and CGI, completely ignoring the latter when it comes to aliens. Thus 95% of the cast are humanoid. I really hope this will change with EP 8

    • January 15, 2017 at 12:35 am
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      Pretty much the only aliens in ANH were Chewie and the Cantina ones. Rebellion didn’t show any in ANH. (Besides Chewie) Empire had even less. sentient ones.

      • January 15, 2017 at 9:25 am
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        a) they neither had the budget nor the technology that Disney has for their SW movies. ROTJ had a budget of 75 Mio. $ (adjusted for inflation), R1 had 200 Mio. $

        b) Most Scenes in the OT are either Rebels or Empire hideouts/ships/spacestations. The Empire despises Aliens, the Rebels only seem to employ a few. Whenever we see a scene that doesn’t take place in one of the aforementione locations there’s plenty of aliens.

        ANH: Tatooine with Sandpeople, Javas and of course the cantina
        TESB: TaunTauns and Wampa on Hoth, Yoda on Dagobah, the space slug with Mynocks, headhunters on a Star Destroyer. Bespin is a bit of a letdown concerning Aliens but at least there are Ugnaughts.
        ROTJ: Jabbas Palace is full with weird creatures of all kinds, including a Rancor and the Sarlacc. Then we get to see a planet mostly inhabited my aliens (Ewoks) and some Mon Calamari/Sullust

        In the Rogue One visual dictionary there are about 10 pages of Alien creatures in a book that has over 200 pages (2 for Space Monkey, 2 for the Twotubes Twins, 2 for Pao, 2 for Admiral Raddus and 2 for the handful of aliens we see in Saw’s hideout). And these ten pages include 3 aliens we haven’t even seen in the movie (human female with half her head removed by Dr. Evazan and a blue skinned hairless alien headhunter). I loved R1 but the number of aliens we got to see was a bit of a disappointment in my opinion.

        • January 15, 2017 at 10:49 am
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          I say keep it consistent with ANH. And they did. They probably had more aliens than ANH but they didn’t linger on them.

          • January 15, 2017 at 9:36 pm
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            More familiar aliens for VIII like twi leks. Please.

          • January 15, 2017 at 9:43 pm
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            There were 3 Twi’leks in R1. I want some Weequys, Ishi Tibs, Rodians, Quarren, even a Dug and Toydarian.

          • January 16, 2017 at 6:04 am
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            So you want to see more of what you have already seen?

          • January 16, 2017 at 4:16 pm
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            Just some sprinkled in, 80 percent can be new.

          • January 18, 2017 at 1:50 am
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            50/50 would be ok, more specifc 30% new, 20% new with non classic anatomy*, 30% familiar, 20% familiar with non classic anatomy* ha ha

            *none classic anatomy: Watto, Sebulba, Salacious B. Crumb, etc.

  • January 15, 2017 at 6:15 am
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    I know it’s the same creature shop, but I felt that the aliens in Rogue One felt more Rick Baker like than the ones in TFA.

    • January 15, 2017 at 6:44 am
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      I think it just reflects the care with which the production design team handled Rogue One. Everything about that film feels more like it belongs in SW, particularly OT-era SW.

      • January 15, 2017 at 10:32 pm
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        “particularly OT-era SW”

        I wonder why???

  • January 15, 2017 at 11:54 am
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    I would have also liked to have seen more Bistan and Pao and “more of” Moroff. OK. Seriously though, adding a bit more of them in an extended version wouldn’t be difficult. I think the addition of Bistan in the U-Wing doing his laugh just for a few seconds while the main fight is on would fit, and bring a smile to the face. Really hope they do a directors cut. Would certainly add more BluRay sales which is what they want in the end isn’t it ?? Disney happy + fans happy. Win-win 🙂

    • January 15, 2017 at 10:32 pm
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      Creating a Director’s Cut would be an admission by Disney that the reshoots were significant. There’s no way that that’s ever happening.

      • January 16, 2017 at 6:03 am
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        And Star Wars doesn’t do Director’s Cuts.

        • January 16, 2017 at 7:35 am
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          Yep.

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