Star Wars' Concept Artists Created Close To 50 Different Dexter Jettster Designs
"Star Wars" is filled with side characters, weird little guys that show up for maybe a few minutes but make such an impact that fans remember them decades later even if we don't actually hear their names in the movies. These are characters that fans get very excited to see their stories expanded when they return to the franchise years later.
One such character is Dexter Jettster, a man with a great name, and a better design: a four-armed alien with a big mustache, an even bigger gullet, and a greasy shirt. He appears in a seemingly random scene in "Attack of the Clones," during its noir-inspired subplot where Obi-Wan goes on a little investigation like he's a private eye, and meets his old friend Dexter at his diner.
In the "From Puppets to Pixels" documentary on the "Attack of the Clones" DVD, we see a meeting where George Lucas is shown about 40 small maquettes of different versions of Dexter's head at the Skywalker Ranch. In the video, Lucas can't fully decide, but instead chooses two maquettes that he likes, and suggests to the team that they combine them to make the alien diner owner he needs. That's how we get Dexter Jettster. Curiously, the scene also shows one of the possible sculptures being a maquette of what would later become Wat Tambor, the tooth-shaped leader of the Techno Union. That's right, Tambor could have almost looked like Dexter instead. Maybe.
The life of Dexter Jettster
ILM animation director Rob Coleman once wrote on Star Wars Insider Magazine how the animation team had rather little to work on when bringing Dexter Jettster to life. At the time of the shoot, they knew the design of the character and his dialog, with some of crew from the art department having added the four arms and the greasy cook look in the time since the session when the head design was chosen. Still, while they had some clues about Dexter's personality from the script, the character hadn't been cast, so the vocal performance and what it would bring to the character was a big unknown for the animators who would actually make the character move and act like a living being. The only thing they knew about what he would sound and act like came from Lucas, who mentioned Dexter would be a bit like the character actor Ernest Borgnine.
Dexter Jettster is an important character because, much like the podracing scene in "The Phantom Menace," this was an echo of Lucas' old career sneaking its way into "Star Wars." The diner scene looks straight out of "American Graffiti," with the look of the diner resembling the greasy spoon from the Oscar-nominated film. As Coleman wrote, "Production designer Gavin Bocquet and his team set out to create a classic American diner with a 'Star Wars' spin. Creatures from a variety of systems were to congregate there for their morning repast, as Dexter and his staff served up their blue plate specials."
Also important to note is that Dexter had a full life before we met him at his diner. He was active during the High Republic era, working as a hyperspace prospector who was good friends with the Pirate Queen Maz Kanata.