Melas

This article is about the Sarkan. You may be looking for Melas, the Human Grand Marshal.

Melas smoking and speaking Sarkese
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Melas^[3] was a Sarkan patron of Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina in Mos Eisley spaceport on the planet Tatooine^[1] in 0 BBY.^[4] They sat in a booth to the left of the cantina's entrance^[1] and were speaking in Sarkese^[5] and smoking a pipe when the local moisture farmer Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi entered in search of a pilot to take them to the planet Alderaan.^[2] Shortly after their arrival, Melas was still seated and smoking when Kenobi and Skywalker got into an altercation at the bar with the criminals Ponda Baba and Doctor Cornelius Evazan.^[1] The Sarkan had mottled gray skin and blue eyes. They wore red and tan robes and a red turban while in the cantina.^[2]

Behind the scenes[]

"Once the creature was built, we shot it at the main stage in San Rafael, which was just a generic shooting stage with big rolling doors. We got several takes out of it in a couple of hours, but, right about that time, John [Knoll] walked around the backside of the creature and said, "You know this looks like it could be another alien. Let's just turn it around and shoot the other side.""

―Howie Weed^[6]

Melas first appeared in^[2] the January 31, 1997 Special Edition re-release of the 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.^[7] The character was created when John Knoll noticed that the back of the alien Ketwol's head looked like a separate alien face and so suggested that they film it as well.^[6] The Ketwol puppet had been created by lead creature designer Howie Weed^[8] at the Industrial Light & Magic creature shop in San Rafael^[6] based on concept sketches by Terryl Whitlatch^[9]

Bies melas — Don Bies with the re-dressed Melas puppet.

Weed began sculpting water based clay into the head and shoulders for Ketwol on the same day he received the sketch and in just over a week he had produced a rubber and foam puppet.^[8] Several takes of it were the shot on the San Rafael main stage over a couple of hours, and it was during this time that Knoll suggested they flip the puppet around and film the back side as well.^[6]

A new Tatooine-appropriate outfit was the pulled together by wardrobe supervisor Anne Polland, who used a turban to hide the puppet's trunk and tusks. Mark Siegel also created a makeshift hookah pipe with a tube through which smoke could be blown. They then shot more footage of this new alien, which become known as Melas.^[6] The footage of Melas was used to replace a shot of the character Arleil Schous,^[10] who used an off-the-shelf mask that had long bothered director George Lucas.^[11]

In the current Star Wars canon, Melas was first identified on a card released in 2015 through the Star Wars: Card Trader app published by The Topps Company, Inc.^[3] The name Melas originated in the Star Wars Legends continuity, where it was first used in Star Wars Trilogy Sourcebook, Special Edition, a supplement for West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game^[12] released on October 1, 1997.^[13]