If you’ve ever questioned the crying Rancor man in Star Wars‘ Return of the Jedi, the most recent episode of The Bad Batch has some long-awaited answers. Rounding off the original Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi begins in epic fashion by introducing a fully-trained Luke Skywalker, replete with black robes and new green lightsaber, and after slipping inside Jabba’s palace on Tatooine, he’s pitted against a fearsome Rancor completely unarmed. By luring the creature into position and crushing it beneath a gate, Luke emerges victorious. Just as the viewer begins cheering another plucky victory for our daring protagonist, however, one of Jabba’s followers – seemingly the Rancor’s handler – begins crying over the fallen beast.
For the young fan watching an otherwise morally black-and-white movie for the very first time, this scene is… confusing. Did Luke do something wrong? Wasn’t the Rancor an evil monster? If Jabba’s a bad guy, why are his henchmen feeling feelings? George Lucas claims the crying Rancor man (officially known as Malakili) was intended to show how everyone is loved by someone, but without any context, Luke making a grown man cry puts a strange ethical wrinkle in Return of the Jedi‘s opening, especially for the kids.
The latest episode of The Bad Batch might just provide some much-needed insight into Malakili’s tears. Clone Force 99 is hired to rescue Muchi the Rancor (another of Jabba’s collection, apparently) from a gang of slave traders on Ord Mantell. When Omega opens its cage as a distraction, the beast initially lives up to its fearsome reputation, embarking on a brutal rampage (although notice how the guards shot first). Quickly, the Rancor’s attitude shifts, as it whimpers in fear when threatened by the slave trader chief. After a drawn-out slug fest with Wrecker, Muchi and the Bad Batch’s resident tank come to some level of exhausted understanding with each other, and Omega is then seen happily riding on Muchi’s back, the creature now officially a friend of the squad. Handing Muchi over to Bib Fortuna, the relief on the face of Jabba’s right-hand man acts as further proof that Rancors aren’t quite as terrible and bloodthirsty as everyone assumed.
Precisely none of this came across in Return of the Jedi. When Jabba referred to his “pet,” the term merely seemed ironic, and as the creature bore down upon a defenseless Luke, there seemed little reason to feel any sympathy for it. But as Muchi demonstrates in The Bad Batch, Rancors are tamable friends to man first, and vicious beasts of war second. They possess unique personalities and form attachments to other species, humans included. Contrary to what the bones in Jabba’s fight pit might’ve suggested, Rancors aren’t always looking to chow down on folk who cross their path. All of which serves to make Luke Skywalker’s victory look a little unnecessary. Admittedly, the Rancor Luke faced was fully-grown and Muchi is adolescent, but if Wrecker could wrestle one into submission, surely a Skywalker could’ve got by without resorting to murder. Trust the Jedi to use a sledgehammer on a nail.
Star Wars lore has previously fleshed out Malakili’s backstory, revealing him to be slave of Jabba’s who plotted to one day escape with the Rancor Luke killed. But compared to this little-known character history, The Bad Batch‘s Muchi is Star Wars clearest explanation yet for why a man could become attached to a Rancor and shed a tear upon its death.
