25 Years Later, Star Wars Just Brought Back One Very Weird Creature

Star Wars is known for many things, but creatures that we’re told smell horrible are oddly prolific. In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo told about how bad Tauntauns “smelled on the outside.” Not to be outdone, in 1999 in The Phantom Menace, Jar Jar Binks got a whiff of a creature called an Eopie and said “PEE-YOUSA!” It may not be the finest moment in all of Star Wars, but for those jonesing for those very specific creatures, they’re back.

In the fourth episode of the new Disney+ series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (spoilers!), the wayward kids onboard a stolen pirate ship find them selves on a parallel planet very similar to their lost homeworld; At Attin. But, this planet is called “At Achrann” and is locked into some kind of perpetual civil war. And, one of the tribes, called the Troiks rely heavily on those same creatures; the Eopies. In fact, Jod (Jude Law) recovering the herd of Eopies becomes a major plot point by the end of the show, meaning, that these stinky creatures are suddenly more important than ever before.

This isn’t the first time the Eopies have returned to Star Wars in recent years. Back in 2022, in the limited series Obi-Wan Kenobi, the titular Jedi of that show rode around on one of those creatures again, just as he did at the end of Revenge of the Sith. In fact, it was an Eopie that carried little baby Luke Skywalker to his desert home on the Lars family moisture farm in that film. So, hey, maybe these are secretly the most pivotal Star Wars creatures of all time? 

Back in 1999, the Qui-Gon Jinn with Eopie toy set was actually fairly rare. Never sold in stores, you could only get this toy if you mailed away for it. So, the fact that these creatures are so valuable in this new episode is, kind of fitting? (You can find a few on eBay in the $49 dollar range right now.

By the end of this episode, Skeleton Crew is still playing its mystery box cards close to vest. The rag-tag crew hasn’t figured out why At Attin is hidden, nor how to get back. But, one thing is for sure: As this show continues, we can expect more and more shout-outs to the rest of Star Wars, even if those deep cuts are more than a little obscure, and 100 percent strange.

Skeleton Crew drops new episodes on Tuesday nights on Disney+.