Baba, Ponda

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Homeworld:
  Ando

• Species:
  Aqualish

• Gender:
  Male

• Size:
  1.85 meters

• Weapon:
  Blaster pistol

• Affiliation:
  Criminal

• 

From the Movies

This mean-spirited Aqualish attempted to pick a fight with Luke Skywalker when the young farmboy first set foot in the Mos Eisley Cantina. The tusk-mouthed thug soon learned not to tangle with the ward of a Jedi, as Obi-Wan Kenobi intervened with a flash of his lightsaber. The thug immediately dropped both the issue and his bloody severed arm.

From the Expanded Universe

Aqualish have a reputation for poor temperaments, and Ponda Baba did nothing to dispel that stereotype. A pirate and smuggler, Baba was an obnoxious miscreant with a penchant for fisticuffs.

Ponda teamed up with trouble-magnet Dr. Evazan after saving the life of the homicidal maniac in the Corellian system. Though Baba first intended on turning in Evazan for the sizable bounty on his head, he came to discover that partnering with the killer quack was a profitable venture.

The two became smugglers, covertly shipping spice for Jabba the Hutt. Such criminal activity brought them to Tatooine. It was on the desert world that Baba picked one fight too many. He barely escaped alive, having his arm cleaved off by the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Evazan used his questionable medical skills to tend to Baba's wounds. A botched surgery resulted in a falling out between the two, and for a time Baba tried to track down Evazan to exact vengeance. But the two managed to put aside their differences and teamed up again.

The pair took refuge on Baba's homeworld of Ando and managed to scare up work from a desperate Andoan Senator. The Aqualish had long been under the strict rule of the Empire, and the Senator wished to use Evazan's scientific expertise and knowledge to craft an advancement so valuable that the Aqualish would be able to buy their freedom. All Evazan asked for in return was protection.

Evazan's latest obsession was mind-transfer technology in the pursuit of practical immortality. Evazan had perfected a mind transfer device, and planned to use it to transfer Ponda Baba's consciousness into the Andoan Senator's body. That way, Baba would get the working arm he always wanted. Evazan's device had worked, after a fashion, though a bounty hunter nearly ruined everything.

As of five years after the Battle of Endor, Evazan and Ponda Baba were amazingly still at large. Baba somehow survived the transfer process, presumably in the Senator's body. Reports indicated that at the time he was once again seeking revenge against the "good" Doctor.

Behind the Scenes

A continuity error involving Ponda Baba is readily apparent in careful viewing of the film. In the cantina sequences filmed in England, Baba has large fin-like hands. In the insert shot of Baba's severed hand, those fins were not available so a hairy clawed hand was used instead.

In the script, Ponda Baba is referred to as a "large, multiple-eyed Creature." When Kenner first made an action figure of the uncouth thug, they simply called him "Walrus Man." It was not until 1989 that West End Games gave him the proper name of Ponda Baba in a roleplaying game supplement. This supplement also identified him as an Aqualish, a name that the production crew of Episode I continued using for their background aliens.