Star Wars: The Force Awakens: What Happened To Constable Zuvio?

Why did ‘The Force Awakens’ tease us with an officially released screenshot and toy line for new character Constable Zuvio, only for his existence to be erased entirely?

In 2015 when we got our first set of ‘The Force Awakens’ stills, we saw the above image. That’s Constable Zevio, a new addition to the ‘Star Wars’ universe, which got fans excited in regards to who he was. A bounty hunter? Law enforcement? A drifter? Nobody knew. So when the film came out and the character was nowhere to be seen, audiences were more than a little stumped.

What’s more, the pink-faced alien was part of the action figure line, even getting his own Black Series sculpt. Even more baffling was his absence from the home release extras, failing to appear in any of the documentaries or deleted scenes, which begs the question: who killed him off and why?

After Entertainment Weekly investigated the matter, one of the key members of the Lucasfilm story group, Pablo Hidalgo, was able to shed some light on the matter.

“I got to name him as part of working with [creature effects supervisor] Neal Scanlan and talking to the creature shop crew,” Hidalgo reveals. “We knew, with ‘Star Wars’ being ‘Star Wars’, that we’d want a name and identify as many characters as possible for potential toys, potential storytelling, potential what-have-you.”

“The notion that this guy was some sort of lawman in Niima Outpost came from the creature department,” Hidalgo shares. “So we coined the name for him, and that name got married to an action figure, and thus the legend of Constable Zuvio was born.”

Without any knowledge or certainty how much, or indeed little, we’d see of Zuvio in the final film, Hldalgo nevertheless created a back-story for the character as part of his obligation to toy manufacturers and in case any comic book writers included him in any short stories.

“You know, life is tough on Jakku,” Hidalgo laughs. “So even the good guys are rather harsh.” So there we have it, he’s one of the good guys! But wait, there’s more - Constable Zuvio is in ‘The Force Awakens’, as he (barely) points it out in a tweet, albeit on April 1.

Stories began to emerge of the character, with some fans believing they saw him die in Rey’s ‘Forceback’ dream sequence, but that’s simply not the case. Neither is the theory that Zuvio was initially intended to step in during the scene where Rey fights with two of Unkar Plutt’s goons, as they try to steal BB-8.

“If you do a search on the character there is this myth starting to evolve that he was part of a sequence that was cut out of the film,” Hidalgo says, but it’s not true; he was never part of the story, as director J.J. Abrams weighs in.

“If you look at any of the creature shop behind-the-scenes photographs or videos, you’ll see that there are so many characters. And each one of them had a name and a designation. In every shot on Jakku we figured out where they would all go and what they would do,” Abrams states.

It appears that Constable Zuvio was a victim of being a small cog in a grandiose machine, meaning whatever the intention Abrams had to use him must’ve changed or simply never come up. Yet at the time of toy production, which can take place way before anyone’s seen anything concrete for the film, figures are made. Remember the oddly inaccurate figures for ‘Jurassic Park’ back in 1993? Clearly the manufacturers were working from very early concept art, as, for example, Dennis Nedry looks nothing like what we see in the finished film.

“I guarantee you that as they were reviewing ‘safe’ characters that can be made into action figures and presented to the public, that was one of those characters,” Abrams reveals. “They had no idea and, frankly, we wouldn’t know either back when we were shooting, if he would end up in the final cut.”

And it’s a fair comment from the director. We’ve seen a number of ‘Star Wars’ action figures from other instalments made into action figures who have little more than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.

“[Zuvio] fits in the great tradition of characters like Snaggletooth or Pruneface. Characters that you might have had actions figures of as a kid, but were hard pressed to identify where exactly they were in the movie,” says Hidalgo, and in this case it appears the mystery of Constable Zuvio has been solved.

There is, however, one place you can get your Zuvio fix: ‘Tales From a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Aliens – Vol. 1′, where he’s the lead character (and on the front cover, no less) in one of the short stories.

Its author, Landry Q. Walker, was rather taken by the character, who appeared interesting on paper and with the merchandise coverage he seemed to be getting.

“He really did look like he was geared up to be someone, you know?” Walker says. “It’s funny because we have this perception, ‘Well there’s a toy, so he’s got to be important.’ But if you think about the history of ‘Star Wars’ and the first wave of toys we had, how important was Hammerhead?”

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is available on DVD and Blu-ray now.

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Picture credit: Disney/Lucasfilm, Hasbro, Twitter