There weren’t nearly enough Porgs in “The Last Jedi” to my liking
I was confident that Star Wars: The Last Jedi would deliver a number of seriously adorable Porg moments because, hello, LOOK AT THEM. Just their presence alone is adorable, and the tiny bit we saw of them in teasers and trailers — THAT SQUAWK, THO — had me literally squealing. But I did have some questions going in: Like, how much would we see from the Porgs? Would it be too little, or too much?? Would they be an integral part of the story, or come off as a gimmick to sell toys???
* WARNING: MILD PORG SPOILERS FOLLOW *
Star Wars, of course, has a long tradition of featuring droids and creatures, some more delightful than others: R2-D2, C-3PO, Yoda, Ewoks, BB-8, and so on. And now, we have PORGS, CRYSTAL FOXES, and EMO BB-8 aka BB-9E. Honestly, what a time to be alive.
In the film, the Porgs are heartbreakingly cute and the Crystal Foxes are elegant and beautiful (and also, play a pretty important role). BB-9E, on the other hand, is a sneaky mofo and while I don’t love that it’s team #DARKSIDE, I’m all in on its goth charm.
For the sake of this, let’s just focus on Porgs, because they’re what really lit up the good ‘ol world wide web before The Last Jedi hit theaters. Many — obviously, myself included — couldn’t get enough of them. Others weren’t having them, which is confusing to me but, well, here we are.
Admittedly, I was a bit biased about Porgs going into The Last Jedi, but I still can’t help but feel that the film didn’t include enough of the ‘lil creatures/my future BFFs.
They appear frequently enough. They pop up on Ahch-To, the island where Luke has been hiding out and rejecting Jedi life, a good amount but only in small doses. And we do hear them chirping pretty regularly throughout the Ahch-To scenes, which is like a reminder that they’re there even when we can’t see them.
We also get a scene in which Chewie goes to eat an already-dead Porg, but hesitates when some live ones stare him down. (For the record, though, he totally ate the Porg — just off-screen.) And we see Chewie and a Porg flying in the Millennium Falcon; some great comedy happens there when the Porg smacks into a window as Chewie maneuvers the spacecraft to avoid First Order forces.
When I try to think about it objectively, the film probably features just the right amount of Porgs. Better to be left wanting more than to be sick of them, right? Like, we don’t want to end up in a Return of the Jedi situation where too much of the film was dedicated to Ewoks.
But then, I think about another cute character — BB-8 — who is pretty central to the newer films and never tires. (At least, he never tires to me…or Poe. Look at that, Poe and I have so much in common
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) That said, BB-8 definitely brings a lot more to the narrative, seeing how he’s a tech wiz who can get our heroes out of basically any bad situation. And Porgs…
“Small, flat-muzzled avians that flock about the rocks and roost in the cliffs of Luke Skywalker’s secluded island, porgs are inquisitive creatures,” starwars.com describes, and…that’s pretty much what you get with ’em.
So yeah, Porgs probably aren’t going to help Poe and co. too much in the whole defeating the First Order thing. And okay fine, objectively there really didn’t need to be more Porgs in The Last Jedi.
But, like I said, the Chewie-Porg Millennium Falcon scenes were hi-larious and as a Porg person, I would’ve liked to have seen more of that. But hey, that’s what DVD extras are for, right?
