The Vampire Strikes Back
Has the latest Star Wars installment introduced the Lucasfilm Vampire?
The Star Wars universe is big and always expanding. Merchandising tie ins ain’t gonna create themself, right? We need new outfits and new ships and new aliens. Lots of new aliens. And so far, Star Wars has delivered aliens that derive from all sorts of earthly ideas of animals, demons, and racist fantasies.
But are there vampires in it?
In the early trilogy, there was a sort of life-after-death for certain Jedis. They were not corporeal, however, and not revenants. Therefore, they don’t qualify as vampires by nearly any understanding. Most of the Sith do not qualify either.
The only character who comes close, in a figurative way, is Emperor Palpatine. He uses the life energy of those around him for his own gain while giving nothing back in return. This isn’t just me making a reach, it’s a definition that shows up in some of the earliest remarks on the topic, one that Voltaire used as far back as 1764. While mocking those who believed in the literal walking dead of folklore, Voltaire turned his attention to what he believed to be the real vampires in his midst:
We never heard a word of vampires in London, nor even at Paris. I confess that in both these cities there were stock-jobbers, brokers, and men of business, who sucked the blood of the people in broad daylight; but they were not dead, though corrupted. These true suckers lived not in cemeteries, but in very agreeable palaces.
-from Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary, entry “Vampires”
But it is a stretch, innit? Maybe if Palpatine had been done in with a stake through the chest, we could make the case stronger.
But with the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, the vampire may have finally entered the galaxy from long ago and far away.
Consider the character of Lady Proxima, who appears early in the movie. She lives in a dark, subterranean lair where she forces others to enrich her, without giving much back in return. Voltaire is already on board!
We don’t get a lot of time to learn of her particulars, but the one thing we know about her is that she — get this — can’t hack the sunlight. When Han shatters an opaque window, she wails and burns not unlike the ending of Nosferatu and a hundred other vampire films.
Of course, vulnerability to the sun isn’t a sufficient condition for being a vampire. She could be a Mogwai.
But get this: according to StarWars.com, the criminal enterprise that Lady Proxima heads up is called The White Worms.
Who’s already ahead of me?
See, Bram Stoker, after penning the original Dracula, turned his attention to another book, called:
The Lair of the White Worm shares several features with vampire fiction like fangs and a penchant for subterranean dwellings and lazing about in the ground and sexual tension. So much sexual tension.
The 1988 movie adaptation takes us a step closer to outright bloodsuckers. The updated HD trailer goes so far as to let prepubescent Hugh Grant utter the term “vampirism”:
So what we know is:
1) There’s a race of characters in the Star Wars universe that burn at the barest touch of the sun
2) The only characters from this race that we’ve met are in a gang called “The White Worm”
3) Bram Stoker wrote a book called “Lair of the White Worm” that was adapted to film in a way that made the antagonists quite vampiric
4) Bram Stoker also wrote the most famous vampire novel ever
It is entirely possible that the Kasdans, while writing Solo, did so without any familiarity with Bram Stoker’s work or the 80s cult horror adaptation. But y’know, I kinda doubt that?
Star Wars, I bid you welcome.
Vampires, I’d rather kiss a wookie.
Toothpickings is a blog that you can read. It is generally about vampires.
Image credits: I’m getting sued for sure…
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