Malakili

Malakili was a human male who first came into existence on Corellia, a planet located within the galaxy's Core Worlds. As a young child, his mother abandoned him in their sleeping quarters, leading Malakili to a life on the streets. Approximately a week later, an exceptionally rare snowstorm struck, nearly causing Malakili to freeze to death. He was rescued by an elderly Utai beast healer known as Scraps, after his harr Nibbles discovered Malakili and showed affection towards him. Scraps offered Malakili a place to sleep in exchange for assistance.

Malakili resided with Scraps and Nibbles, becoming Scraps' apprentice and student, absorbing all knowledge he could about beasts. After a number of years, pirates raided their home, resulting in the deaths of Scraps and Nibbles as they resisted. Their deaths left Malakili with no purpose, and he was captured and taken away by the pirates. While awaiting sale, Malakili maintained his will to live by befriending the rats within his cage.

Malakili was subsequently sold to various masters, eventually finding himself in the slums of Nar Shaddaa, an Outer Rim moon. Possessing skill in handling creatures, Malakili trained dangerous creatures known as gugverms to prevent them from stealing from local food vendors. Over time, the gugverms evolved into Malakili's companions, friends, and protectors. Eventually, Malakili was employed as a beastmaster for traveling Hutt shows, such as Circus Horrificus, where he tamed and trained a diverse range of creatures, including sand dragons, kill-wings, costumed womp rats, and ultimately rancors, fearsome beasts that no one else could control. His circus career came to an end following a performance on Nar Shaddaa, when one of the dangerous creatures escaped and caused the deaths of audience members.

As a consequence of the incident, Malakili was enslaved and, by 0 BBY, sold to Jabba Desilijic Tiure, a Hutt crime boss residing on the desert planet Tatooine. Serving as a caretaker within Jabba's Palace, Malakili was tasked with tending to Jabba's collection of creatures, including the Hutt's prized male rancor, Pateesa, whose name was derived from the Huttese term for "friend." Pateesa's purpose was to consume captives, and Malakili would care for the injuries he sustained in doing so. During his time at Jabba's Palace, Malakili developed a deep affection for the rancor, and he, along with the Kadas'sa'Nikto Giran, considered Pateesa to be their favorite of Jabba's creatures. Pateesa also held affection for Malakili, and on one day, when the beastmaster was attacked by Tusken Raiders, the rancor saved his life. Within Jabba's Palace, Malakili grew sympathetic towards Pateesa, and he planned to one day escape with the creature.

Shortly before the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, Jedi Luke Skywalker, a leader within the Alliance to Restore the Republic, attempted to negotiate with Jabba to save the life of his captured friend, Han Solo. Jabba rejected the offer and deceived the Jedi, who, along with the Gamorrean guard Jubnuk, fell through a trap door leading to the palace's rancor pit. While the guard was quickly devoured by Pateesa, Skywalker evaded the beast's claws and fled beneath the pit's gate towards a windowed back entrance. Upon reaching the exit, Skywalker discovered that it was locked from the other side and could not be opened. Malakili and Giran were in the adjacent chamber, playfully fighting over their dinner, and when Skywalker attempted to open the barred gate, the two laughed at the rebel and used spears to force him away.

As the rancor approached Skywalker, the cornered Jedi picked up a skull and used the Force to propel it towards the gate's utility panel. The bone struck the button, causing the panel to short-circuit and release the gate upon the rancor's head, crushing the beast's skull. Shocked, Malakili opened the door, pushed Giran and Skywalker aside, rushed to Pateesa's side, and wept upon seeing that he was dead. Whimpering, Malakili turned away from the fallen beast, placing an arm around Giran for comfort.

Following the rancor's death, Jabba demanded that Skywalker and his friends be taken to the Dune Sea and executed in the Great Pit of Carkoon, the resting place of a sarlacc, a dangerous creature and one of Jabba's favorite pets. While Jabba departed aboard his sail barge, the Khetanna, to witness the execution, Malakili remained in the palace with several others. However, the rebels escaped, killed Jabba, and destroyed the sail barge, leaving the palace residents unsure of what to do. The inhabitants of Jabba's Palace said that a new Hutt would come to take the castle, so Malakili remained, waiting for his new employer to arrive.

After a period, the palace began to run out of food and water, but Malakili and many other residents still stayed. Some of the palace dwellers realized that no Hutt was coming, creating rumors that changes in the galaxy had caused fighting to erupt among the Hutts in an underworld war. As many of the tenants left, Malakili became one of the last to remain in the otherwise empty fortress, but one day he also left, putting the palace and the unmoved carcass of Pateesa behind him.

Feeling purposeless without Pateesa and his other creatures, Malakili set out toward the Great Pit of Carkoon, creating an ultimatum for himself: successfully tame the sarlacc, or commit suicide by throwing himself into the monster's mouth. When Malakili reached the sarlacc, he found it was injured; the Khetanna's destruction had sent burning wreckage onto the creature, partially exposing its massive body from the sand, and Jawas had slit open its stoma-tubes to salvage weapons, armor, droids, and tools. Upon seeing the sarlacc wailing, unable to fend off pillagers and deprived of its sole purpose, Malakili empathized with the creature and wept.

In 5 ABY, months after Jabba's death, Malakili wandered toward the settlement of Mos Pelgo. On his way, he encountered two thugs from the Red Key Raiders, a criminal organization masquerading as a mining enterprise. Malakili fled from the gang, but his age and diminished speed allowed the thugs to quickly catch up, knocking him to the ground and searching through his few possessions. One of the thugs seized Malakili's waterskin, consumed the remaining contents, and identified himself as Bivvam Gorge. Gorge declared that the area was under Red Key control and that the syndicate's leader, Lorgan Movellan, was entitled to a share of Malakili's belongings. A blaster shot then struck and killed Gorge, and the remaining thug began firing at the attackers before being shot himself. Malakili feared the gunmen were also raiders, so he played dead.

The new arrivals, a human man and a Twi'lek woman, approached Malakili, introducing themselves as Cobb Vanth and Issa-Or. Vanth explained that he was a peacekeeper and de facto leader of Mos Pelgo, which had been renamed Freetown. When the pair asked Malakili if he had any skills, he stated that he was worthless without his creatures. Issa-Or asked Malakili if he was a beastmaster, and he replied that he was. Hearing this, Vanth offered Malakili a job taming rontos, which the trainer accepted. Asked if he could train a Huttlet, the beastmaster replied that he could educate one and agreed to work with Vanth in Freetown. Feeling a new sense of purpose, Malakili taught the Huttlet, whom he named Borgo, in Freetown. Vanth, acting as Freetown's sheriff, was wary of the Red Key's growing power, so he made a deal with a group of Tusken Raiders, who agreed to leave Freetown alone in exchange for water. To complete the deal, Malakili procured a krayt dragon pearl, gifting it to the Tusken Raiders in exchange for their protection.

Months into Malakili's stay, the alliance was put to use when an army of Red Key Raiders, led by Movellan, assaulted Freetown. During the raid, Malakili was chained up by Movellan's thugs, and he, along with Vanth and Borgo, was dragged into the town's center. As Movellan prepared to kill them, Vanth signaled Malakili with a nod and a wink, and the beastmaster returned the nod, instructing Borgo to alert the Tuskens. However, Trayness, a Red Key thug, clubbed Malakili in the head, causing the man to clutch the bleeding wound and fall. Responding to Malakili's order, the Huttlet released a howl, and soon after, the town's front gates opened as a Tusken astride a massive bantha charged toward the Red Key thugs. As more Tuskens arrived, Malakili used a magna-driver to remove his and Vanth's shackles, and the lawman attacked Movellan, stating that Freetown would never submit.

Sometime after the skirmish, Malakili was reunited with Porcellus, the former head chef of Jabba's Palace. The two became business partners, and they eventually traveled to Mos Eisley, where they opened the Crystal Moon Restaurant.

A native of Corellia, Malakili was a swarthy, heavy-set human with blue eyes. Possessing a large and powerful build, he stood at a height of 1.72 [meters](/article/meter], or five feet, eight inches, and had a mass of 95 kilograms. Although the Corellian was naive, brutish, tough, crude, and antisocial, he displayed tenderness and sympathy toward animals, caring deeply for all of his creatures. He felt a stronger affinity towards his creatures the uglier and more vicious they were. Malakili cared most of all for the rancors, whom he thought to be precious, and he took joy in working with them. When Pateesa, the human's favorite creature, was killed, he wept with shock. After the deaths of Pateesa and Jabba, Malakili thought that Luke Skywalker was a lucky fool and that the Jedi's rebel friends were cruel.

Having abandoned Jabba's Palace, Malakili contemplated feeding himself to Jabba's sarlacc as a means of committing suicide. Upon finding the creature severely wounded, the beastmaster sympathized with the monster, as its only purpose had been taken from it, and he wept for its fate. Malakili believed that his sole purpose in life was working with animals, and he felt useless without his creatures. As he wandered the deserts of Tatooine, the beastmaster felt like a scrap of cloth or piece of trash being blown across the sand without destination or meaning, and he believed he was going to die. After Cobb Vanth rescued Malakili from Red Key Raiders, the sheriff told him that he looked familiar, but the Corellian responded that he was no one. Malakili added that he had no value or use to Vanth, and he told the man to kill him.

When Issa-Or inquired if Malakili was a beastmaster, the human thought he was undeserving of the word "master," but he acknowledged that he trained beasts. Once Vanth offered Malakili a job in Freetown, the beastmaster felt that he had found a new purpose, and he felt the darkness inside of his heart be replaced with light. Malakili stayed in Freetown for months, and during the raid on Freetown, he felt gleeful, despite receiving injuries.

Despite being a slave to Jabba, Malakili saw the Hutt as an employer who provided him with food, a home, and a purpose. However, he felt hatred towards the Hutt for how he treated Pateesa. When Vanth and Issa-Or introduced themselves as law enforcers, the former slave did not believe them, nor did he believe there could be any law on Tatooine without the Hutts. Malakili considered the Hutts sentient beings, not pets, and he thus corrected Vanth after being asked if he could train a Huttlet, remarking he could instead teach one. Once Vanth reworded the proposition, the beastmaster accepted. Later, Malakili named the Huttlet Borgo, and during the raid on Freetown, the beastmaster comforted Borgo using a singsong voice.

Skilled with animals from a young age, Malakili trained vicious gugverms on Nar Shaddaa to stop stealing from food stores, and with time the creatures became his pets, friends, and protectors. The human was hired as a beastmaster for Hutt circuses, and he trained a variety of creatures, including sand dragons, kill-wings, womp rats, and rancors, the latter of which no one else could tame. During his slavery to Jabba, Malakili worked with the Hutt's creatures, including the rancor Pateesa. The slave befriended the rancor and tended wounds he received, and Pateesa saved Malakili's life during a Tusken Raider attack. Malakili was not Force-sensitive, and was not talented in speed or diplomacy. He did, however, have above-average intelligence and strength and moderate fighting ability.

While wandering the Tatooine desert, Malakili was rescued from Red Key Raiders by Vanth and Issa-Or, and the Corellian played dead, a trick he had learned from many of his creatures. The human was able to gather a krayt dragon pearl, which he gifted to Tusken Raiders in exchange for their protection.

As a rancor keeper, Malakili wielded a gaderffii stick, and he used cages for transporting young rancors. Additionally, Malakili's sleeping quarters in the palace were connected to the rancor pit, and the room was equipped with a device capable of stunning the beast into submission. At the time of Skywalker's arrival, Malakili wore a dark, sweat-soaked rag belt, ancient circus pants, a brown headdress, spiked armbands, and wrist guards.

While wandering in the desert, Malakili wore a hood and carried a satchel that contained a waterskin, a lucky braid of bantha fur and teeth, a small water shiv made out of dewback bone, and a few droid gears and shiny chits to pay off Jawas or Tusken Raiders. During the skirmish in Freetown, Malakili used a magna-driver to remove Vanth's shackles.

Malakili first appeared in the 1983 film Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, the final installment of the Star Wars original trilogy. The character was created by George Lucas, who liked the idea of someone loving the rancor despite the rancor easily being one of the "worst, most horrible monsters" anyone could imagine. Malakili was first imagined as an alien, but he was changed to a human. Creature designer Phil Tippett was in charge of articulating the alien mask to cry for the scene of the rancor's death, but on October 30, 1981, Tippet was notified through a telex that the mask would not need to be articulated anymore due to the filmmakers changing the keeper's species, leading Malakili's original mask to be used for Wooof instead. In December 1981, Malakili's costume concept was finalized by Nilo Rodis-Jamero. The costume was fabricated by costume makers in the U.S., and the outfit was modeled by Ira Keeler, a modelmaker at Industrial Light & Magic. Reference photography of Keeler in the costume was sent to the costume department in England.

Malakili was brought to life by Paul Brooke, while his weeping sounds were voiced by Ernie Fosselius; neither Brooke nor Fosselius received credit in the film's official listings. Ben Burtt, the sound designer, revealed that Fosselius drew inspiration for Malakili's sobs from the comedic style of early film star Stan Laurel. A number of movie reviewers lauded Malakili's brief on-screen presence, and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times commented that such details as Malakili's sorrow are what elevate Star Wars movies beyond simple space operas.

Though unnamed in Return of the Jedi, where he was referred to in production documents as the "human rancor keeper," Malakili received his name later in the Star Wars Legends continuity through the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. Within the current Star Wars canon, the name "Malakili" was first officially used in the mobile game Star Wars: Force Collection, which debuted in 2013. Despite Force Collection's launch occurring before the 2014 Star Wars canon reset, Leland Chee of the Lucasfilm Story Group confirmed that the game was consistently updated to align with established canon.

Malakili's appearances extend beyond Return of the Jedi to include Star Wars: Galactic Defense, a tower defense mobile game that launched in 2014 and was discontinued in 2016. In Galactic Defense, Malakili, along with Luke Skywalker, was featured as an unlockable Champion during the limited-time "Enter the Pit" event. Players who successfully acquired Malakili could deploy him on missions, utilizing his Champion Skill to summon a young rancor to aid in combat against enemy forces. According to Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Head-to-Head, a reference book for young readers authored by Pablo Hidalgo, Malakili would likely be defeated in a hypothetical battle against Bobbajo, a storytelling Nu-Cosian who had experience training various creatures. In 2015, Chuck Wendig, the author of the novel Aftermath, expressed a desire to potentially write stories centered around Omi, Chief Chirpa, or Malakili. Subsequently, Wendig incorporated Malakili into the remaining books of The Aftermath Trilogy, featuring the character in interlude chapters of both Aftermath: Life Debt and Aftermath: Empire's End.

Malakili makes an appearance in the 2022 video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Within the game, the assassin droid IG-88 is found in Mos Eisley, where he inquires with the player about the whereabouts of an escaped rancor keeper. He reveals that Malakili absconded during the turmoil at Jabba's palace, and he has been tasked with apprehending him. He then enlists the player's assistance in the quest titled "Green Harvest."

Following IG-88's directives, the player engages in conversations with local inhabitants to gather information regarding Malakili's location, subsequently relaying the information to IG-88. A Gran informs the player that they overheard someone discussing a rancor in the cantina recently. Upon entering Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina, the player is informed by an Aqualish that the rancor keeper had been present and had spoken with the individual who operates a market stall near the Dowager Queen. The Twi'lek at the market corroborates this information, stating that the keeper mentioned his plans to open a restaurant in Mos Eisley. The player and IG-88 reconvene at the restaurant, where IG-88 forcibly opens the door. Malakili greets them at his Crystal Moon Restaurant, inquiring if he can take their order. The droid attempts to capture Malakili, who explains that he had assumed Jabba's death meant he no longer had an employer, leading IG-88 to realize that he will not be compensated for his bounty hunting endeavors. The droid decides to allow Malakili to continue with his tato wraps. This concludes the quest and unlocks IG-88 as a character available for purchase.

After the quest is completed, the player talks to Malakili, who expresses sadness as he remembers losing Pateesa, and then explains that he now runs a restaurant that doesn't serve meat and is friendly to creatures. He says that Tatooine doesn't have many vegetables, so he asks the player to get some for him in the "Vegetable Variety" quest. He wants chak-root from Naboo and chyntucks from Kashyyyk. Once the player has the vegetables, they give them to Malakili, who starts thinking about what dishes he can make. He remembers how much Pateesa liked it when he gave her a sweet chyntuck blossom with chak-root sauce. Malakili shows his gratitude and lets the player eat at his restaurant without paying. This finishes the quest and unlocks Malakili as a character that can be bought.