Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
Speaker 2: Over the weekend, I like a lot of you, went
Speaker 2: to see two thousand and five Star Wars Episode three,
Speaker 2: Revenge of the Sith on the big screen, taking in
Speaker 2: the culmination of the Clone War, the fall of the Republic,
Speaker 2: and the death of the Jedi Order. It's a dark
Speaker 2: tale for many younger viewers, perhaps the first tragic story
Speaker 2: arc they ever saw, and one that still ruminates on
Speaker 2: the state of our own world. Since the film is
Speaker 2: perhaps fresh on many listeners' minds, I thought today might
Speaker 2: be a good day to turn our attention to the
Speaker 2: fauna of the planet Urdapao, where Obi Wan Kenobi finally
Speaker 2: hunts down General Grievous. Far from just another desert or
Speaker 2: forest world, Utipaal is delightfully weird and fittingly morose for
Speaker 2: the darkest Star Wars film entry. As described in Star
Speaker 2: Wars Galactic Maps, written by Emily Fortune, It's a dry,
Speaker 2: windswept world quote pock marked with giant sinkholes into which
Speaker 2: the oceans drain, and its underground cities built from millions
Speaker 2: of animal bones. Matthew Stover, in his novelization of the film,
Speaker 2: describes these sinkholes as being the size of inverted mountains,
Speaker 2: the interior walls riddled with industry and urbanization. The planet
Speaker 2: is home to two sentient species, the diminutive uta, serving
Speaker 2: as the planet's labor cast, and the tall, gaunt, carnivorous pollens.
Speaker 2: According to Star Wars Alien Archive, written by Natalie Club
Speaker 2: and Katrina Palante, the long lived pollens originally lived on
Speaker 2: the planet's surface till a climate forced them underground to
Speaker 2: live with the Utah, but given their sensitive vision, the
Speaker 2: pollens were more than happy to abandon the surface world
Speaker 2: for the pits. Likewise, their sensitive hearing required them to
Speaker 2: wear special dampeners, perhaps due to the loud echoes of
Speaker 2: life in the sink whole cities of Utapao. The pollens
Speaker 2: in the Utah domesticated at least two different native reptile
Speaker 2: species to serve as their steeds, the winged dactylians that
Speaker 2: we might compare to some of Earth's larger terosaurs and
Speaker 2: the scampering verractyls both are adept at navigating the sinkholes
Speaker 2: of Utapal, the dactylians by flight and the use of
Speaker 2: the pit's thermal updrafts, and the verractyls via their wide
Speaker 2: gate and five toed feet. Obi Wan famously makes use
Speaker 2: of a verractyl in his pursuit of general grievous. We're
Speaker 2: also told that a huge noss monsters live in the
Speaker 2: planet's sink whole bounds surface lakes and rivers. Here on Earth,
Speaker 2: we also have sinkhole ecosystems. As Laura Bicker describes in
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty four article for BBC, China's giant sinkholes
Speaker 2: are a tourist hit, but ancient forests insider at risk. Quote.
Speaker 2: These cavities in the Earth trapped time, preserving unique, delicate
Speaker 2: ecosystems for centuries. These environments, generally caused by the dissolution
Speaker 2: of soluble bedrock like limestone, by ground water or even
Speaker 2: underground rivers, have been found to contain unique organisms, especially plants,
Speaker 2: and sometimes serve as naturally protected habitats for endangered flora
Speaker 2: and fauna. So while we may often think of sinkholes
Speaker 2: as natural pitfalls of destruction, sometimes harboring the bones of
Speaker 2: animals that fell inside them. They can also serve as refuges,
Speaker 2: so it's perhaps fitting that the sinkholes of Uodapaal came
Speaker 2: to serve as a last redoubt for much of the
Speaker 2: planet's life. It's also interesting, though perhaps unintended, that the
Speaker 2: planet's decimated surface and life sustaining sinkholes resembles the state
Speaker 2: of life on the republic slash Imperial capital world of Coruscant,
Speaker 2: where in place of biological life, one single vast city
Speaker 2: covers the surface of the planet, and deep vertical ventilation
Speaker 2: shafts dive down to starports and an entire undercity far beneath.
Speaker 2: During the days of the Galactic Empire, these depths even
Speaker 2: harbored some of the remaining embers of the Rebellion. Tune
Speaker 2: in for additional episodes of The Monster, Fact, The Artifact,
Speaker 2: or Animaliustupendium each week. As always, you can email us
Speaker 2: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.