During the Star Wars panel at Disney’s recent D23 event, Lucasfilm unveiled the trailer for the first season of its upcoming animated anthology series Tales of the Jedi. While the series will mostly focus on heroes like Ahsoka Tano and Mace Windu, the trailer also teases storylines involving villains like Count Dooku and a previously unseen Inquisitor character.
Some iconic villains from the Star Wars canon, like badass bounty hunter Boba Fett and conflicted orphan Darth Vader, are a lot more likable than others, like whiny brat Kylo Ren and sleazy crime lord Jabba the Hutt.
Jabba The Hutt
Tatooine crime lord Jabba the Hutt is by far the sleaziest and slimiest Star Wars villain of them all. He proudly displayed the frozen-in-carbonite form of Han Solo on the wall of his palace, he tried to feed Luke Skywalker to his pet rancor, and he chained up Leia Organa to become his slave.
Jabba is amused by other people’s pain and forces his prisoners to walk the plank over the Sarlacc Pit. He gets one of the saga’s most satisfying death scenes when Leia strangles him with the chains he put her in.
Kylo Ren
Much like his grandfather before him, Ben Solo was a promising Jedi apprentice who was turned to the dark side by a powerful galactic overlord. Like Anakin, Ben slaughtered his classmates, donned a cool black mask, and took on a new villainous pseudonym, Kylo Ren, as he invaded the galaxy with an evil empire.
Adam Driver made the character compelling with a nuanced performance, but Ben was written as too much of a whiny brat for audiences to love him in the same way they loved Anakin.
Grand Moff Tarkin
Peter Cushing laid the groundwork for every portrayal of the smug, smarmy, self-righteousness of an Imperial pencil-pusher with his turn as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars movie. Tarkin is one of the few people with the guts to stand up to Darth Vader.
Not only does Tarkin do the Empire’s dirty work; he’s also not true to his word. He forces Leia to reveal sensitive information about the Rebellion in exchange for sparing her home planet of Alderaan, then destroys Alderaan anyway.
Emperor Palpatine
Emperor Palpatine is the big bad of the Star Wars saga; the villain behind the villain. During the Republic era, as a seemingly harmless politician, Palpatine pulled the puppet-strings to turn wayward Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker into a murderous monster.
Ian McDiarmid’s deceptively hypercamp performance as Palpatine has made the character a fan-favorite icon in spite of his obvious personality flaws.
General Grievous
Palpatine’s final apprentice before his plan came together, General Grievous, has one of the most awesome character designs in the Star Wars universe with four arms and a robotic exoskeleton covering up his Sith yellow eyes and his withered, barely beating heart.
Grievous’ penchant for collecting the lightsabers of dead Jedi Knights might have made him a sadistic serial killer, but it has also become a popular meme.
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Teased as the big bad of Disney+’s self-contained post-original trilogy Star Wars TV universe, Grand Admiral Thrawn is surprisingly likable for a cold-hearted military bureaucrat dedicated to bringing back the Empire. Thrawn works for the bad guys, but he believes they’re the good guys.
Thrawn is polite to his underlings, he rewards hard work, and he offers help where it’s needed. If he was on the right side of the conflict, he’d be the saga’s most lovable character.
Count Dooku
The second apprentice to train under Palpatine in the prequel trilogy, Count Dooku, has a lot in common with Palpatine’s ultimate apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, in that he’s also a Jedi Knight who was corrupted and turned to the dark side. Dooku is surprisingly calm for a Sith padawan; most dark side Force users are full of rage.
Dooku’s heartbreaking final moments make him deeply sympathetic. As Palpatine encourages Anakin to decapitate Dooku, Dooku realizes he was lied to and that he was just a pawn in a larger game all along.
Maul
Palpatine’s first of many Sith apprentices, Darth Maul, was introduced as a badass force to be reckoned with in The Phantom Menace. His double-bladed lightsaber and demonic appearance made him look really cool, but fans initially turned on the character when he killed the beloved Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn.
However, after being resurrected in animated form, Maul dropped the “Darth” from his name and became more of an antihero as he turned his back on Palpatine and actively fought against him.
Darth Vader
For over a decade, Darth Vader was the most evil and formidable mass-murdering war criminal in the galaxy. But he was always under the manipulative control of the Emperor. When his estranged son Luke finally showed him love and compassion, the good within Vader’s soul re-emerged.
He killed the Emperor, brought down the Galactic Empire that he helped to build, and achieved redemption – at least in his son’s eyes – before becoming one with the Force. Star Wars fans might not condone Vader’s actions, but they love Anakin dearly.
Boba Fett
A badass bounty hunter ripped straight from a spaghetti western, Boba Fett is by far the most lovable villain in the Star Wars canon. Whether he’s in the presence of a notorious gangster like Jabba the Hutt or a fearsome Sith Lord like Darth Vader, Fett maintains the same ice-cool attitude that made him a fan-favorite icon.
Like Clint Eastwood’s iconic “Man with No Name” antihero, Fett only speaks when it’s absolutely necessary and usually lets a smoldering stare do the talking.