Ugnaught

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Homeworld:
  Gentes

• Size:
  About 1 meter

• Affiliation:
  Cloud City

• 

From the Movies

Ugnaughts are a species of humanoid-porcine beings who live and work on Bespin's Cloud City. They are usually found in the Tibanna gas processing plants, or as general laborers throughout the city. Ugnaught workers are barely one meter tall, have pink skin, hog-like snouts and teeth, and long hair. Their clothes are gray, with blue smocks.

From the Expanded Universe

The Ugnaughts originally hail from Gentes, in the Anoat system, from where they were sold into slavery long ago. When the Corellian eccentric and noble Lord Ecclessis Figg wished to build a floating mining complex on Bespin, he decided to recruit several Ugnaught tribes to help in the mining of the base metals needed to build the structure. To this end, he recruited three Ugnaught tribes, the Botrut, the Isced and the Irden. He promised them freedom, livelihood and a share in the Figg & Associates profits. To make themselves feel at home, the Ugnaughts have constructed many labyrinthine tunnels throughout the city, which can only be navigated by their kind.

Ugnaughts have a rich oral tradition. They are ruled by elected terend councils, which are led by elected ufflor officers. Ugnaughts live to 200 years of age and are represented in the Cloud City's Parliament of Guilds. Ugnaughts live their lives in accordance to their blood profession, with Ugnaught parents teaching their children their trade. If the number of new Ugnaughts in a given profession exceeds the need, a blood duel is called. When the Ugnaughts reach their twentieth year of age, these fights are held to the death, with the victor winning the right to inherit their blood profession. Aside from this uncharacteristic and outdated violent custom, the Ugnaughts are generally a peaceful people with a rich culture.

Shortly after the Battle of Hoth, the Cloud City mining colony fell under the rule of Imperial Captain Treece, who brought back slave-like conditions to the Ugnaughts. Many Ugnaughts fled the city, led by the wealthy King Ozz who sheltered the refugees on floating platforms terraformed to mimic the Ugnaught homeworld. King Ozz's Ugnaughts brought about an insurrection on Cloud City, planting a series of bombs in the outpost. The city was evacuated until the bombs could be defused.

When the Empire was ousted and justice brought back to Cloud City, the Ugnaughts returned.

Behind the Scenes

The early drafts of The Empire Strikes Back had Han Solo and Leia Organa encounter aliens known as Whatnots. The script notes describe the Whatnots as being stoic creatures, with tall, thin builds and pale countenances, not unlike the alien visitors in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Like the Gungans that would follow in Episode I, the Whatnots are primitive, noble, yet very capable within their limited means; they brandished pneumatic dart guns or laser-tipped polearms.

As the primordial Gas Planet evolved into Bespin, so too did its native alien inhabitants evolve into the Ugnaughts. They became a stocky, scavenger species, not unlike Tatooine's Jawas or the Shelldwellers from THX-1138. Interestingly enough, one Ugnaught concept sketch was labeled as "Boba Fett's gang," suggesting that the Ugnaughts that oversaw the carbon-freezing chamber originally came with Fett. This was changed before production to have the Ugnaughts be part of Cloud City's workforce.

The Ugnaught Chief, later identified as Ugloste, was played by the late Jack Purvis, who also played the Jawa chief in A New Hope and the Ewok Teebo in Return of the Jedi.