Weazel

This article is about the Tatooinian individual. You may be looking for the weasel creature.

Warning: This infobox is missing the following parameters: parents, pronouns, children, siblings, partners, families, feathers

"Hey, I want in on this action!"

―Weazel^[src]

Weazel was a diminutive male weapons dealer who lived and worked on the planet Tatooine in 32 BBY. In that year, he attended the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace on Tatooine and sat in the viewing box of his acquaintance, the Toydarian merchant Watto, in the Mos Espa Grand Arena. During the race, he gambled on the result with Watto and the Anx Graxol Kelvyyn, wagering twenty wupiupi that the Podracer of Anakin Skywalker—a young slave to Watto—would cross the finish line. Good fortune came his way when Skywalker ultimately won the race. Later that year, Weazel and a Trandoshan associate of his were selling arms at the Tatooine trading site known as Mochot Steep when it was attacked by a band of Tusken Raiders.

Biography

"You're really betting against your own slave, Watto?»
«Indeed I am, Weazel! My money's on Sebulba!"

―Weazel and Watto, at the Boonta Eve Classic^[src]

The stocky male^[1] Weazel lived on the^[3] Outer Rim planet Tatooine^[1] in the years leading up to^[3] 32 BBY.^[4] He worked as a weapons dealer on the desert planet and had several acquaintances, including a Trandoshan with whom he sometimes dealt arms and the Toydarian merchant Watto.^[3] In 32 BBY, Weazel attended the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace near the city of Mos Espa at the Mos Espa Grand Arena, and, along with several of Watto's other associates, joined the Toydarian in his private viewing box to watch the race. One of Watto's slaves, a young Human named Anakin Skywalker, was entered in the event, and when the boy's Podracer failed to start at the commencement of the race, Weazel and the other occupants of Watto's box laughed and jeered.^[1]

Weazelmakingmoney — Weazel and his Trandoshan associate sell arms at Mochot Steep.

Skywalker quickly overcame his Podracer's difficulties,^[1] and as he raced to catch up to his opponents, Weazel, Watto, and the Anx Graxol Kelvyyn began to place bets on whether or not his vehicle, cobbled together from spare parts, would complete the race. Although Watto gambled against his own slave, Weazel and Kelvyyn both wagered twenty wupiupi that Skywalker would cross the finish line. After the Dug racer Sebulba completed the first of three laps in record time, Watto and Kelvyyn bet on whether he would set a record for the entire race, but Weazel balked at the asking price of fifteen wupiupi and sat out of the gamble.^[5] Skywalker eventually overtook Sebulba and won the race, and although Watto argued with his comrades,^[1] Weazel and Kelvyyn insisted that he pay them the money he owed.^[5]

Later in the year, Tatooine's indigenous Tusken Raiders grew increasingly violent and raided several settlements under the leadership of Sharad Hett, a former Jedi Knight–turned–Tusken warlord. After a particularly brutal attack on the city of Anchorhead, residents of the surrounding area began to purchase large quantities of weapons. Weazel and his Trandoshan acquaintance set up shop at the trading site known as Mochot Steep and sold arms that were being smuggled past official checkpoints by others. Three days after the attack on Anchorhead, they were at Mochot Steep when Hett's Tuskens arrived. The raiders announced their presence by shooting and killing the Trandoshan, and the trading site's denizens frantically attempted to evacuate during the subsequent slaughter.^[6]

Personality and traits

Weazelattheraces — Weazel laughs at Anakin Skywalker's plight during the Boonta Eve Classic.

"Tough luck, Watto! Pay up!"

―Weazel, smugly demanding payment after a bet^[src]

Standing at less than 1.37 meters tall,^[2] Weazel was considered short and stocky for his species.^[3] Possessing blue eyes and light skin, he wore his brown hair down to his shoulders.^[1] Weazel was fluent in Huttese^[5] and was considered by others to be sleazy.^[7] Although he was highly amused when Anakin Skywalker's Podracer would not start,^[1] Weazel was critical of Watto for betting against his own slave and won twenty wupiupi from the Toydarian for wagering that Skywalker would finish the Boonta Eve race. He was eager to gamble against Watto and was smug in his victory when the time came for Watto to pay him.^[5]

Behind the scenes

"The character I was set to play was originally a masked character, and I think that once George had written it and wanted me to play it, he sort of had second thoughts about putting me inside a mask again. So he came up with this idea of putting me in the Podrace watching in Watto's box. They glued these extensions in my hair, and everyone mistook it for Willow watching the Podrace."

―Warwick Davis^[src]

Weazel was created as a character for the May 1999 film Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, in which he was portrayed by veteran Star Wars actor Warwick Davis. Davis was famous for playing Wicket the Ewok in 1983's Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi,^[8] and in The Phantom Menace, he was called on to play four roles: Weazel; the Rodian child Wald; the Jedi Master Yoda in several of Yoda's walking scenes; and an extra seen roaming the streets of Mos Espa.^[9] Davis was initially hired to only play Wald, a masked character, but director George Lucas decided during filming that he wanted Davis to appear onscreen unmasked. He accordingly placed Davis inside Watto's viewing box during the Podrace scene, and after hair extensions were glued onto Davis's head, the character of Weazel was born.^[8] Davis's scene was filmed over one day at Leavesden Studios in England, where, in his own words, he was "basically sitting in bleachers and moving my head left to right."^[10] The actors in the box were additionally subject to blowing fans that represented the Podracers' exhaust draught. The scene was filmed from various angles, and during the shoot, indigestion from the on-set snacks and bright lights that simulated Tatooine's twin suns combined to cause Davis to fall asleep until he was woken up by Lucas.^[11]

As Weazel, Wicket, Wald, and Willow Ufgood—a magic-using character that Davis played in Lucasfilm Ltd.'s 1988 sword and sorcery film Willow—all begin with the letter W, Davis has joked that he created a long list of W names and gave it to Lucas to consult whenever he was called upon to play a new character.^[12] According to Davis, when fans saw the Podracing scene, many of them mistook Weazel for Ufgood, who was similarly long-haired when played by Davis.^[8] Seven years after the release of The Phantom Menace, the two characters were equated as part of an April Fool's Day joke that featured a mock-serious update to the StarWars.com Databank on April 1, 2006. Entries on several characters and locations from Willow and its sequel novels, the Shadow War Chronicles, were added to the Databank, which stated that the series was now a part of Star Wars canon and that its events took place on Andowyne, a remote world located deep in the Kathol Rift.^[13]

The Databank entry on Ufgood, a.k.a. Thorn Drumheller, claimed that he experienced strange other-worldly dreams in between the events of Willow and the Shadow War Chronicles, one of which brought him to Tatooine, "a world entirely wrapped in harsh deserts, and populated with many bizarre and wondrous beings." Ufgood took the alias of "Weazel" and used his magical abilities to impress Watto, who invited him into his private viewing box at the Mos Espa Grand Arena in the hope that Ufgood's magical abilities would bring him good luck in his gambling endeavors. Ufgood later woke up on Andowyne with a sunburn and a parched throat as the only evidence of his bizarre trip to another world.^[14] On April 2, StarWars.com admitted that the updates had been a joke and removed them from the Databank.^[13]

Weazel has also appeared in the comic issue Star Wars 7: Outlander, Part 1,^[6] released in June 1999, as well as in the online comic Podracing Tales, published on StarWars.com in December 2000.^[5] He has additionally been mentioned or appeared in photos in several sourcebooks and issues of Star Wars Insider,^[9]^[10]^[15] and in 2008, he received an entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.^[3] The character is absent from a number of adaptations of and material related to The Phantom Menace, most of which do not depict Watto's viewing box. The box does appear in the film's video game adaptation, but it is populated only by Watto, Graxol Kelvyyn, a droid, and a flunky of Watto's.^[16]