So I’m watching Star Wars: The Last Jedi right now, and it’s a scene with Chewbacca on Ahch-To. He’s killed and spit roasted a Prog. Just as he’s about to tuck into his meal, several other Porgs interrupt his meal.
They look at Chewbacca with these super cute anime eyes, and make cooing noises. They convey this feeling of “don’t eat my friend” to Chewie. A mighty growl from the Wookie scatters the lot, with the exception of one. He flees after a second roar from Chewbacca. But they’ve gotten into his head. Glumly he puts down what appears to be a delicious roast Porg.
When SW:TLJ came out, the Porgs created quite the controversy. People compared them to Ewoks, featured in SW: Return of the Jedi.
Wicket the Ewok from Return of the Jedi
The comparison wasn’t a physical one per sé, rather it was the motive behind the character. Many people felt Ewoks were put into RoRJ to appeal to younger children. Piggybacking off the first point, many believed the diminutive forest dwellers of Endor were taylor made for toys, plush stuffed animals, and other various toy and marketing gimmicks.
After the success and boon in toy sales after the first two movies, combined knowing that George Lucas owned the rights to the Star Wars toy revenue, SW fans felt like the Ewoks were a cash grab by Lucas. Many older SW fans felt the same way about Porgs. But I disagree with the Porg haters for a few reasons.
First, I don’t know if Lucas still owns the rights to the toy revenue. He very well could have given those rights up with the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney. I looked around online but couldn’t get an answer to that question.
Something else that Porgs bring to the table is humor! Humor has always been a part of Star Wars, but it’s usually R2-D2 and C3-PO (along with Chewbacca) who are the comic relief. BB-8 is doing a great job in place of R2-D2, but on Ahch-To there are no droids, only Chewbacca. So the Porgs become a fun foil for our Wookie friend to be pestered by and get a laugh or two out of.
The last thing about Porgs is a more practical one, with a rather ingenious solution. The reallocation of Ahch-To is a monastic settlement of UNESCO site Skellig Michael, an island located off the southern coast of Ireland. It is also a dedicated bird sanctuary, home to seven bird species (some protected). This means there were birds everywhere on the island during filming. It was impossible to keep birds out of the shots. So instead of painstakingly digitally removing all of the birds from the recordings, those birds became the Porgs. How brilliant was that?!?!
Well, if you were a Porg hater I hope that I’ve shed some light on why they really aren’t so bad. They’re cute,funny, and could have been flocks of regular birds.
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