EG-9

EG-9 was an ancient, cobbled-together labor droid who was a mainstay of Mos Espa spaceport on the planet Tatooine. It was repairing a moisture vaporator shortly before the Boonta Eve Classic podrace in the year 32 BBY.

BiographyEdit

A mainstay of Mos Espa spaceport on the desert planet Tatooine,^[1] EG-9 was working on a moisture vaporator shortly before the annual Boonta Eve Classic podrace^[3] of the year 32 BBY.^[4]

CharacteristicsEdit

EG-9 was an ancient labor droid cobbled together from at least three different models of droids, including a salvaged Temirca droid head with a broken antenna, a Montoro serving drone body, repair worker arms, and wheels scavenged from a Verpine G9 droid. It was given an orange paint job with silver highlights for maximum visibility, and had gray photoreceptors. EG-9 had a broken antenna attached to the left side of its head.^[1]

Behind the scenesEdit

EG-9 was originally created for the 1999 film Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. However, its short,^[5] humorous scene, while scripted^[6] and included in early cuts,^[5] was left out of the final version of the film.^[6]

The Star Wars Legends reference book Star Wars: Episode I The Visual Dictionary, written by David West Reynolds^[7] and released on May 26, 1999,^[8] used an image of EG-9 to depict an unidentified droid,^[7] which later appeared, unnamed, in Podracing Tales, an online comic published on StarWars.com on December 19, 2000.^[3] This droid was only explicitly identified as EG-9 in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: The Expanded Visual Dictionary, a revised edition of Star Wars: Episode I The Visual Dictionary written by Jason Fry^[1] and released on January 16, 2012,^[9] making the character canon within the Legends continuity.^[1]

EG-9's likeness was again recycled as the Trade Federation MED-47 medical droid featured in the 2001 video game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.^[10]

Deleted sceneEdit

"They must be important if the Viceroy sent one of those useless protocol gearheads to greet them."
"A Republic cruiser! That's trouble…don't you think?"
"I'm not made to think."

―PK-4 and EG-9, in a scene deleted from The Phantom Menace^[src]

EG-9's deleted scene from The Phantom Menace was included in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace Illustrated Screenplay,^[11] released on May 3, 1999,^[12] which also featured a storyboard of the scene from the Lucasfilm Archives.^[11] An animatic of the scene, dubbed "Trash Talking Droids," was later included in the 2011 Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray set,^[13]

The scene features EG-9 stationed aboard^[11] the Trade Federation flagship Saak'ak. When the Republic cruiser Radiant VII^[1] arrives carrying Jedi ambassadors Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi shortly before the Invasion of Naboo, EG-9 and fellow worker droid PK-4 watch the docking bay from a nearby hallway. PK-4 assumes the Jedi are important when Viceroy Nute Gunray sends TC-14,^[11] whom the droids^[6] consider a "useless protocol gearhead," to greet them. When EG-9 notices the Jedi's ship belongs to the Galactic Republic, he asks if PK-4 thinks it could mean trouble, to which the other droid responds that he is not made to think.^[11]

With regards to Star Wars Legends, Lucasfilm considered the deleted scenes of the prequel trilogy films to be canon, unless they conflicted with story details from the films themselves.^[14] EG-9's deleted scene shows the droid to be part of the Trade Federation,^[11] which The Phantom Menace establishes has no presence on Tatooine,^[15] while The Phantom Menace: The Expanded Visual Dictionary states that EG-9 is a "mainstay" of that desert planet.^[1] Given these conflicting elements, this article treats EG-9's deleted scene as non-canon.