W. Wald

Born in 38 BBY, Wald was a friend of Anakin Skywalker in their childhood years. He lived on Tatooine with his family, which had moved to Mos Espa only shortly before the Invasion of Naboo, and helped Anakin as he built a podracer. Wald was known as a petty thief and vandal, and graffiti proclaiming Watto to be a "dirty old bird" was attributed to him. Wald always shared his illicit earnings with his friends, and his friendship with Anakin Skywalker was strong.

In the years following Anakin's departure, Wald remained close friends with Kitster Banai and Anakin's mother, Shmi. He took a job working in Watto's salvage yard, but never matched Anakin's skills in repairing old hardware.

After the Battle of Yavin, Wald was often overburdened with jobs in addition to the normal chores while working for Watto. For example, when there was a problem with large mynocks slipping into Watto's junkyard at night to eat the power cables, Watto told Wald to solve the problem. Fortunately for Wald, a traveler who was looking for a missing droid part agreed to help Wald and went to the location just outside of Mos Espa where the mynocks roamed, thinning out the population drastically. The traveler agreed to do two more jobs for Wald. A gang called the Laser Flits had ambushed a delivery of swoop parts for one of Wald and Watto's customers and stolen ten swoop parts. The traveler went to the Laser Flits' headquarters and retrieved the parts, killing at least ten gang members. The other job was a simple delivery job. Some spare parts were to be delivered to a Qord D'Baelor customer waiting in Mos Espa Starport. Having completed the jobs, the traveler left. Wald appreciated the benevolence of the traveler, whom he ended up considering a friend.

When Watto retired, he turned over the salvage shop's rights to Wald. He renamed the shop Wald's Parts and continued to do a meager business during the early years of the New Republic. Wald had encounter a stranger who asked him of Anakin Skywalker. Unknown to Wald, the person was Luke Skywalker, the son of his old friend Anakin Skywalker. When Kitster stole the Killik Twilight moss painting, Wald helped him escape from Jergo, then later provided information to Leia Organa Solo on where Kitster had fled with the moss painting. Leia, however, was quietly infuriated that he refused to believe Anakin Skywalker had grown up to become Darth Vader, unable in his mind to reconcile the joyous young child he had known with the monster of the dark side. He was also unaware of his return to Tatooine and the actions he took in attempting to rescue his mother.

Wald was played by Warwick Davis, who also played Wicket W. Warrick in Return of the Jedi, as well as Weazel in The Phantom Menace[3] and various other characters in the series.

In a deleted scene Greedo accuses Anakin Skywalker of cheating in the Boonta Eve Classic pod race which resulted in Anakin attacking Greedo until being stopped by Qui-Gon Jinn. Following the altercation, Wald reminds Greedo not to keep up this kind of behavior or he will meet a bad end which he eventually does 32 years later.

Wald appeared in the 2003 video game Star Wars Galaxies, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts, prior to its closure on December 15, 2011. He was added as part of the quest titled "Wald's Woes" with the release of "Chapter 2: The Talus Incident," on August 1, 2006.

• Star Wars: Episode I The Visual Dictionary
• "Around the Galaxy" — Star Wars Galaxy Collector 6
• "Use the Force: Episode I Card Quiz" — Star Wars Galaxy Collector 6
• Galactic Phrase Book & Travel Guide
• Young Jedi Collectible Card Game — Boonta Eve Podrace
• The New Essential Guide to Characters
• The Official Star Wars Fact File135
• Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Star Wars: Head-to-Head Tag Teams
• LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia
• "Things To Look Out For In Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D!" — Star Wars Insider 131