Who Owns the Mos Eisley Cantina Anyway?

(Part Two of: From a Certain Point of View- Review)

To quickly answer the question in the title of this blog- It’s a Wookiee named Chalmun, therefore the Cantina is technically called “Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina”. Why a Wookiee from Kashyyyk would be on Tatooine…. as Johnnie Cochran would say “That does not make sense!” But apparently this fact has been canon since a 1993 roleplaying game.

There are at least two bartenders at Chalmun’s. One is Wuher (the one who doesn’t like droids) and on the nightshift you’ve got Ackemena who was played by Bea Arthur (one of the Golden Girls) in the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.

The rest of this blog will focus on stories 11-17 in the book “From A Certain Point of View”. These are the Mos Eisley Cantina Stories. Many of these sideline characters haven’t been heard from since the anthology “Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina” published in 1995.

“Not for Nothing” by Mur Lafferty
In “Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina” there was a story centered on Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes called “We Don’t Do Weddings”. As far as I can tell this story is more or less a sequel to that one. “Not For Nothing” addresses the fact that Bith have large eyes, no eye-lids and are living on a desert planet where sand is always blowing around (a fact which some of the band members are NOT okay with).

“We Don’t Serve Their Kind Here” by Chuck Wendig

Wuher is the bartender at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Surprisingly very little has been written about this character in the old Expanded Universe or the new. A role-playing game gave him the name Cedo Partu in 1997, but the name never caught on, and so Cedo is now Wuher.

Anyway, Wuher is basically a good guy, just a little grizzled- And he has a right to be. He was orphaned during the Clone Wars when droids invaded his home planet- Thus his dislike for droids. Really, Wuher is as lovable as any harmless curmudgeon.

“The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper” by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction
The longest story in this collection so far focuses on many patrons of the Cantina including Kabe the Chadra Fan, Muftak the Talz, Myo the Abyssin, and Djas Puhr the Sakiyan. 

This story is not without humor considering you have Matt Fracion of “Sex Criminals” fame as one of its authors. In the end, wagers are made and serendipitous events occur.

“Added Muscle” by Paul Dini
The shortest story in this collection so far focuses on Boba Fett. Instead of revealing any details about Fett’s motivations (which is what these stories generally do) , we get to see a lot of his personality, which is a treat. The prose is quite strong here, and it is certainly the most artistically crafted piece in this novel.

“You Owe Me a Ride” by Zoraida Córdova

This tale is one of the weakest and easily forgettable of the collection so far. It stars the Tonnika sisters, Brea and Senni, who are not the most memorable of Star Wars characters to the point where they don’t even have action figures. I would have bet good money on the fact that every single Cantina-goer had an action figure counterpart, but not true for Brea and Senni. Apparently, Lucasfilm did not get a waiver signed from the actresses to use their likeliness and to this day the only toy that exists is a single micro-machine miniature (not even a pair for each twin). I realize now that I used to own this figure, but was not able to locate it for the purposes of reposting.

“The Secrets of Long Snoot” by Delilah S. Dawson
Garindan ezz Zavor is the long snooted bounty hunter who reported on the location of Ben, Luke, R2 & 3-PO in the Mos Eisley Space Port. This tale is the “Twelve Years a Slave” version of Star Wars because it turns out that Garindan used to be a rich socialite on his homeworld, but the Galactic Empire took him into slavery. Now he’s just trying to earn enough creds to escape Tatooine and get back to his family. Yet time is running out. 

“Born in the Storm” by Daniel José Older
Born in the Storm presents an incident report filled out by stormtrooper TD-7556 about the goings-on in the hunt for two rebel droids on Tatooine. TD-7556 is one of the troopers that stopped Luke and Ben’s landspeeder and asked to see identification. TD-7556 is not the one that Ben pulls his Jedi mind trick on- he’s the other one. The one that just wants his day to end so that he can get a tall glass of booze down at the Cantina. TD-7556 doesn’t hate the Empire because of any evil thing they have done, he just hates the Empire because he hates his job. We’ll call this story the “Office Space” version of Star Wars. This incident report is the final communication to his employers before he decides to metaphorically take a bat to the copy machine.

Until Next Time

I decided to keep this blog focused on Mos Eisley, so I’m not quite halfway through this book yet. If you haven’t picked up a copy of “From a Certain Point of View” it is available at your local library. Happy Reading Star Wars Fans!