Braconnor Bakiska
Physical description
Species	Stennes[1]
Gender	Male[2]
Hair color	Brown[3]
Skin color	Tan[3]
Chronological and political information
Era(s)	Rebellion era[3]

[Source]

Braconnor Bakiska was a male of the Stennes species who lived during the time of the Galactic Civil War. During the year 0 BBY, Bakiska was present in Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina, located in Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine. Braconnor Bakiska was sitting inside the entrance to the cantina when the former moisture farmer Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi came to the cantina looking for a pilot to take them to the planet Alderaan. During that time, Bakiska sat at a table with the Defel, Arleil Schous; the Advozsec, Bom Vimdin; the Arconan, Hem Dazon; and the Siniteen, Pons Limbic.

BiographyEdit

Braconnor Bakiska was a mustachioed male^[2] member of the Stennes species^[1] who was alive during the Galactic Civil War fought between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance. In the year 0 BBY, Bakiska spent some time in the city of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine, shortly after the Corellian corvette Tantive IV was boarded by the Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator over the planet. During his time on Tatooine, Bakiska was in Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina when a former moisture farmer named Luke Skywalker and a Jedi Master named Obi-Wan Kenobi entered the cantina, searching for a pilot to take them and the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 to the planet Alderaan.^[3] Braconnor Bakiska was seated at a table near the entrance to the cantina^[4] with the male Defel Arleil Schous, the Advozse male Bom Vimdin, the male Arcona Hem Dazon, and the Siniteen male Pons Limbic^[5][6] when Skywalker and Kenobi entered.^[3]

Personality and traitsEdit

Braconnor Bakiska had tan-colored skin and brown hair, including a mustache, which drooped from his upper lip. Bakiska wore a dark-colored hood over tan clothing while at Chalmun's Cantina in 0 BBY.^[3]

Behind the scenesEdit

A mustachioed individual first appeared in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, a 1977 film. In the movie, the individual was seated at the table that was seen at the start of the cantina scene. The mustachioed individual appeared in only one of the pick-up shots, and was quickly covered by Hem Dazon's head after it moved into the frame.^[3] The filming of this character's table was part of supplemental shooting for the cantina scene recorded^[6] in the city of Los Angeles^[2] in the United States after principal photography was completed.^[6] The masks used for the supplemental shoot were slip-on, made of rubber, and designed by makeup artists Rick Baker^[7] and Laine Liska. The mustachioed individual was based off a mask known as "Terminal Man," one of Baker's pre-existing designs, which was an attempt by Baker to create an original Halloween mask of Frankenstein's monster.^[2]

NamelessEdit

By the late 1990s, the character had received the nickname "Fu Manchu" from fans due to his mustache, but had still not been named in any official source.^[2] Leland Chee, the Lucasfilm official who maintains the Holocron continuity database, stated on the StarWars.com forums that he believed the individual's mask was the same as that of another character in the cantina named Trinto Duaba, with the addition of a mustache.^[8] This fact was confirmed by Rick Baker and posted in an Official Star Wars Blog written by Pablo Hidalgo and posted on StarWars.com on September 26, 2012. However, Baker was unware who put the mustache on the character's face, which he viewed as a stupid idea. Another one of the cantina makeup artists, Nick Maley, did not view the character as a high-quality design, and was one background character that he hoped people would not look at too closely.^[2]

Celebration VI namingEdit

On August 25, 2012,^[9] the mustchioed individual was given a name as part of Pablo Hidalgo and Tom Spina's "Behind the Scenes of the Cantina" panel at Celebration VI,^[2] a Star Wars convention held from August 23 to August 26 in Orlando, Florida.^[9] In order to have some control over the name of the character, Hidalgo and Spina formed the individual's last name—"Bakiska"—from the names of Star Wars Episode IV artists Rick Baker and Laine Liska. During the panel, cards for Tom Spina's design company, which were decorated with the face of another cantina character known as "Snaggletooth" were handed out to the audience. One fan received a card with a mustache drawn on the character's face, which was Hidalgo and Spina's way of selecting a fan to form the character's first name. An audience member named Brandon Connors received the special card, and Hidalgo formed the character's first name "Braconner" from Connors's name, although the spelling differed due to the fact that Hidalgo did not verify the spelling of the fan's name. As a prize for winning the contest, Connors also received a replica of the character's mask made by Tom Spina Designs during the panel.^[2] After the original naming at the panel, Tom Spina and Pablo Hidalgo decided to change the character's name to "Braconnor Bakiska" in order to better represent the spelling of Brandon Connors's name. On September 26, 2012, Hidalgo wrote an official Star Wars Blog discussing the process of naming and researching the character. The blog post also confirmed that Bakiska was a male. The blog also clarified that Bakiska's charater used the same mask as Trinto Duaba, another character in the cantina scene^[2] who was identified as a Stennes Shifter in the 1997 Star Wars Adventure Journal 12 article, "Shape-shifters."^[10] This identification confirmed that Bakiska was a Stennes, but it did not confirm him to be a Stennes Shifter since they had the same appearance as the Stennes species.^[1]

AppearancesEdit

• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (First appearance)

SourcesEdit

Wookieepedia has 4 images related to Braconnor Bakiska.

• Star Wars: Chronicles (Picture only)
• Star Wars: Behind the Magic (Picture only)
• Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy (Picture only)
• Star Wars: Complete Locations (Picture only)
• The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film (Picture only)
• "Jedi Library"—Star Wars Insider 92 (Picture only)
• "The Star Wars Effect Part 1"—Star Wars Insider 94 (Picture only)
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. I, III ("Hem Dazon," "Bom Vindin") (Picture only)
•  The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Clone Cadets on StarWars.com (content now obsolete; backup link on Archive.org) (Picture only)
• "The Beastmaster!"—Star Wars Insider 126 (Picture only)
•  "Exploring the Creature Cantina at Celebration VI," The Official Star Wars Blog
•  "Meet Braconnor Bakiska," The Official Star Wars Blog (First identified as Braconnor Bakiska)

Notes and referencesEdit