So this post got all inspired by a gnarly piece my new friend Maryanne Christiana-Mistretto wrote on a New Jersey-based gent named Jonathan Rossi who custom builds Star Wars lightsabers, even drawing A-lister clientele like Jack Black and Post Malone. Have a read at this link:

How one man created an empire living out his childhood dreams

After reading Maryanne’s article, I got to staring at my vintage 1978 Death Star playset sitting like a trophy next to my desk and I poked around my original Star Wars action figures, still safely tucked into another relic from the day, an original figure carrying case. Not the famous Darth Vader helmet case, but a standard two tray carrying case with a Star Wars diorama plastered across the front. My mom got it for me that glorious year in 1977 when the original film came out, and it came loaded with the original line of action figures she’d meticulously collected for me. Still there today. Moms just rule that way.

Looking at my old Hammerhead and Bossk figures still in prime condition, I got to thinking about grossly forgotten Star Wars characters over the years, and by God, there are a ton! How can anyone who is not actually writing about Star Wars possibly keep up with every single, solitary character in the universe? Old school Star Wars fans stuck in the original trilogy only will nod with glee at the name R5D4, as in the rustbucket, dome-blowing astromech droid, an ugly kissing cousin to everyone’s favorite bucket ‘bot, R2D2. As it turns out, blown motivators notwithstanding, R5D4 got his comeuppance in the third season of The Mandolorian on Disney Plus.

Now, you have to really be into Star Wars to know who Doctor Aphra is, a runaway sensation brewed up by Marvel Comics for one of their many offshoot series in a galaxy far, far away. With nine feature films strung together as “The Skywalker Saga,” that’s more than enough brain pain trying to keep up with everyone getting screen time, especially with each third done in and speaking to a different generation each.

Add the Solo and Rogue One cinema tie-ins, the Clone Wars, Rebels, Bad Batch CGI series, all of the Disney Plus shows…you’re in it to win it in the name of The Force, or you’re tapping out. Need I mention the countless Star Wars spinoff novels and comics over the same 46 year course of the institution? I’m looking at my first print run of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye from 1978 by Alan Dean Foster and am preparing to read Shadow of the Sith by Adam Christopher and Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn, widely considered the master Jedi of Star Wars novels. This after recently finishing Mike Chen’s early years tale of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Brotherhood.

You get my point and if you’ve gotten to this point in my post, thank you. I’ll get the point of this whole exercise right now.

All these characters in a cosmos so grand it’s a wonder that other “Star” enterprise (cough cough, sorry, I’ll see my way out after that one) hasn’t collided on Kashyyk or Vulcan. It’s easy to forget so many names, yet for their creators, the actors or voices, it’s no doubt very personal to them. Captain Raymus Antilles, here’s to you, brother, for being the first of many on Darth Vader’s onscreen kill count. Finis Valorum, well, you botched it all up being played like a chump by Emperor Palpatine, forever turning the tide of the entire storyline. Someone forgot to kneel before Zod, since the illustrious Terrence Stamp delivers a pivotal, if tiny blip in the Star Wars mythos.

For me, the prime “forgotten” Star Wars character of all-time has to be Kit mother-flippin’ Fisto!

This is one of the elite Jedi Masters who had a seat on the daggone council on Coruscant, this before some “chosen one” elitist with the dumb nickname “Ani” allowed himself to be pawned into a murderous machine of mayhem. Order 66, shudder…

Kit Fisto is that squid-head of supreme badassness George Lucas struck gold with, but like Darth Maul, one of the entire saga’s greatest villains, Fisto was introduced, allowed to shine in spurts, then…poof…gone in a foiled attempt to bring the Chancellor, I mean the Emperor, the darkest of the Sith incognito, to justice. George, we love you, but goddamn.

Introduced in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and dispatched in the subsequent film, Kit Fisto became a quiet icon amongst children and old schoolers from 2002 to 2005. A part of the amphibian Nautolan species, I tended to consider Kit a green-skinned rasta of the blade who might have a galactic tweak of Peter Tosh spooling inside his Force-addled mind. Fierce, quick, and there’s that ridiculously cool smile. I’m saying it again. Kit mother-flippin’ Fisto!

Back then, Kit Fisto was hot merchandise. His action figure sold out routinely, and once future generations caught on, Kit became a cult hero yet again. Almost all of these youngsters started their Star Wars journey with the prequels and following in chronological order versus us dinosaurs who were there first to see chapters four through six in a state of confusion as to Lucas’ master plan.

I should know, since my own son became a monster Kit Fisto fan, along with Mace Windu. I mean, the kid has great taste, of course. The aches and pains of trying to find the kid a Kit Fisto back then, oy… Then once he got into Legos, the quest began all over again to amass a block styled Star Wars universe. Yes, I joined the kid in brick building, and yes, it took me another bit of hunting to find a Lego Kit Fisto. God, the memories of all those dinky plastic lightsabers and trying in vain to keep them all with their respective Lego Sith or Jedi.

Kit Fisto may have been criminally underused in the prequel films, but his legend only grew in animated form. One might say The Clone Wars shows did nearly as much for Kit’s legacy as Ahsoka Tano, who gets her own spinoff show on Disney Plus starting next week. Yeah, you know, Ahsoka mother-flippin’ Tano!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.