50 Most Iconic Star Wars Costumes

11. Chewbacca

Chewbacca does not need much in the way of introduction: he’s the big Wookiee partner of Han Solo, who wields a bowcaster and has a bandolier. He does not change much in any of the films he appears in, but he doesn’t have to.

He’s a giant walking carpet, to borrow from Princess Leia, whose gun packs a serious punch if TFA is anything to go by. Moreover, he provides visual interest (as noted by Michael Heilemann’s Kitbashed, a blog dedicated to the making of Star Wars). He’s the alien we see the most in the original trilogy, and he’s important enough to appear both in ROTS and TFA.

Kitbashed has done plenty on the history of Chewbacca’s design, ultimately sort-of-but-not-really debunking the well-known story that Chewbacca was based on George Lucas’ dog. At one point, Heilemann quotes Lucas as saying that it all was supposed to be a combination of a monkey, a dog, and a cat. Wookiee design principles are about as complicated as spelling Kashyyyk, as it turns out.

The concept of Chewbacca started out in a much more threatening place and changed to accommodate different shooting scripts. Finally, though, we ended up with the mostly-friendly-looking but also arm-pulling Wookiee we now all know and love.