Braconnor Bakiska

Braconnor Bakiska was a Stennes Shifter who spent time in Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina in the Mos Eisley spaceport on the planet Tatooine in 0 BBY. While in the cantina, he sat at a table in one of the establishment's backrooms with several other patrons: the Arcona Hem Dazon, the Advozse Bom Vimdin, the Defel Arleil Schous, and the Siniteen Pons Limbic.

While the group sat together, a pair of humans—the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and the former moisture farmer Luke Skywalker—entered the establishment looking for a pilot to take them to the planet Alderaan. Shortly after the humans arrived, Vimdin, Bakiska, and Dazon were still sitting together at the table with several other patrons when Skywalker and Kenobi got into an altercation with the criminals Doctor Cornelius Evazan and Ponda Baba at the cantina's bar.

Bakiska had tan skin, brown eyes, and brown hair, including a mustache. Like many members of his species, he was hyper-wary of strangers.

While at the cantina, Bakiska wore a brown hood over a tan shirt.

Braconnor Bakiska first appeared in the original trilogy film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, which was released on May 25, 1977. The character's single shot in the film was filmed as part of pick-up photography in post-production where supplemental footage was shot for the cantina sequence on a sound stage in Dovington's Hollywood studio between January 24 and 25, 1977,

The character's mask was a re-use of the mask used for another cantina character, Trinto Duaba, which itself was based on a slip-on commercial Halloween mask called "Terminal Man" that Rick Baker produced as an original take on Frankenstein's monster; a reconstructed man with electric terminals on his head. Baker and Laine Liska were then responsible for creating the mask used in the film, although Baker does not know who added the mustache, which he considers stupid. Although the character had no production nickname, fans would later dub him "Fu Manchu" based on the mustache.

The character would not receive an official name until Star Wars Celebration VI on August 25, 2012, during the "Behind the Scenes of the Cantina" panel hosted by Pablo Hidalgo and Tom Spina. When preparing the panel, the pair both gravitated toward the character and decided to provide him with a name to make the panel a memorable event. Wanting some control over the name, they created the surname Bakiska as a tuckerization of Baker and Liska's names, with the plan being to create the forename based on one of the panel attendees. Spina recreated the mask as an additional prize for the chosen attendee, and prior to the event, postcards featuring the character Snaggletooth were handed out to guests.

One of these cards had a hand-drawn mustache added to it, and during the panel Hidalgo and Spina had everyone check their cards for the mustache in order to reveal the winner. Although some of the seven hundred plus attendees had already left prior to this point, Brandon Connors revealed that he had the mustachioed card, and Hidalgo initially created the forename "Braconner" based on Connors' name. The spelling was then changed to "Braconnor" at Spina's suggestion, as while Hidalgo was more interested in a phonetic Tuckerism, Spina suggested it should more closely resemble Connors' name since that was the point of the competition.

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