Watto

In his youth, Watto was drafted into the army of the Ossica Confederation, whose soldiers poisoned the food supplies of the rival confederations with chemical weapons . The drought ended, and with it the war, and Watto had a lame leg and a broken left fang to commemorate the war. Subsequently, the Toydarian settled on Tatooine, where he became friends with the Java clans, learned the secrets of the gray economy and mastered some of the trading technologies. Like the Javas, Watto preferred to do business with strangers rather than with the cunning population of Mos Aisley. Strangers are much easier to fool. Watto was very successful at selling various metal parts thanks to his entrepreneurial acumen. Watto practically did not accumulate personal wealth - he was almost pathologically squeezed, and all the property of the Toydarian lay in the backyard of his shop. His main wealth was things that emphasized his status, for example, the hard-won slaves Anakin and Shmi Skywalker. If not for the addiction of Toydarian to gambling, he would easily have secured a calm and comfortable old age.

Long before the saga began, Watto took possession of the rights to slave Shmi Skywalker and her son Anakin . They got to the Toydarian from the Hutt Gardulla the Elder, who lost to Watto, putting the slaves at stake in the hearth racing. Having found out that Anakin was not only a talented mechanic, but also a good racer, Watto allowed him to participate in races, but set against him. The greed of the Toydarian cost him his side. Due to the crushing loss at the races, Watto gave Qui-Gon to Jinn not only the hyperdrive he needed, but also Anakin’s freedom. A few years later, the Toydarian agreed to sell Shmi Skywalker to Kligg Lars, who subsequently married her.

In the shopping district of Mos Espa, among the many shops and markets where you can buy and sell anything you like, there is a fairly popular parts store with several droids and the future Jedi Anakin Skywalker. Both the boy and the store itself belong to Watto, a rather rude subject who is terribly fond of bargaining. In this flea market you can find the rarest spare parts and details, but the price can be very high.

Lucasfilm head of design Doug Chan said that “George knew exactly what he wanted from this character,” but he left the design department more freedom to sketch the character. Terril Whitplatch and artist Ian McCagg developed several concepts for the character: while Whitplatch saw Watto as a puffy parrot-like creature with large wings, McCaig portrayed him as beast-like, with four large arms and smoking a cigar ^[1] .

However, George Lucas did not like these conceptual drawings. Chan then combined his head from a conceptual drawing of another creature that Lucas liked, with a chubby torso and wings like hummingbird wings. This time, the drawing received the approval of the director. The decision about Watto’s suit was made much simpler. They became a simple vest and a tool belt, loaded with all kinds of devices.

After approving the concept, the head of modeling at Industrial Light & Magic, Jeff Campbell, began work on the character. Throughout the process of creating the model, Watto Campbell met regularly with Rob Coleman, the director of the film, to coordinate various characteristics of the creature's appearance ^[2] . During the filming, the sound of flapping Watto's wings was achieved by sound designer Ben Burt by opening and closing the umbrella ^[3] .

IGN editors put Watto in 78th place on their list of 100 of the best Star Wars characters. They wrote that he was “one of the most complicated scientific anomalies” in connection with “the idea that such a pot-bellied creature is able to stay afloat for so long.” They added that he was “not a prince” due to his fraudulent transactions ^[4] . In The Holy Family and Its Legacy, German culturologist Albrecht Koshorke discusses the presence of the “Holy Family” in “The Phantom Menace”, stating that while there was no “careful guardian watching over his mother and the Holy Son,” Watto acts in a role such as “A person who has patriarchal authority without being a father” ^[5] .

It has been suggested that the image of this character is offensive because it resembles a stereotypical caricature of Jews. He has a large nose, bead eyes, speaks in a raspy voice and is portrayed as greedy and greedy - another common stereotype of Jews. J. Hoberman of The Village Voice called him a egregious ethnic stereotype in connection with his hooked nose ^[6] . Bruce Gottlieb from Slate magazine criticized Watto’s image and, linking this character with anti-Semitic concepts, noted that the Jewish race "even in the" distant galaxy "is behind the slave trade" ^[7] . Patricia J. Williams of The Nation stated that Watto can also be described as a stereotype of the Arabs, as well as his image “more fully anti-Semitic - anti-Arab and anti-Jewish” ^[8] . She added that Watto reminded her of "anti-Semitic cartoons published in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century." American Review's Jane Prittimen noted that after leaving the movie theater she heard two teenagers describe the character as “a little weird Jewish guy with wings.” Prittimen described his image as “not at all subtle” and said that “this may give rise to stir already formed anti-Semitism among the youth audience and give them permission to continue their hatred out loud” ^[9] .

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• Watto on Wookieepedia: Star Wars wiki