Bring Back 'Star Wars' Snot Vampires, You Cowards

Disney's acquisition of the Star Wars franchise necessarily trimmed some of the more bonkers fat from the edges of that galaxy far, far away. Whether or not you enjoy this new streamlined experience is entirely up to you, but I think we can all agree that there was one wholly egregious excision from the canon, the inglorious removal of characters so vital and wonderful that it's bordering on an actual crime that they have not yet been reintroduced into the new stories.

I'm talking, of course, about the snot vampires.

You see, in the old Legends canon, there was a race of brain-eating aliens called the Anzati, colloquially known as "snot vampires." They were nigh-immortal humanoids, cold to the touch due to a lack of circulatory systems, and capable of hypnosis that rivaled the Jedi mind-trick. Also, they grew tendrils from the sides of their face and then shoved them up their victim's nostrils to suck out the "soup" of their grey matter.

It was a gloriously stupid way to get to Space Vampire, but the old stories ran with it. The snot vampires were ancient and mysterious, even by Star Wars' standards, with their metaphorical fingers in everything – and, obviously, their actual nose-tentacles, too. It was said that they even inspired the Sith. Because the Anzati were a force to be reckoned with, going up against the Jedi and almost winning all the time.

And they've been there since the very beginning, since A New Hope. The dude with a hookah in Mos Eisley Cantina, Dannik Jerriko, was tagged as a space vampire pretty early on – specifically, he was a bounty hunter known as the "Eater of Luck." He was basically Star Wars' very own Dexter, murdering criminals and killers and nogoodniks alike. Eventually, he ended up in Jabba's palace, where he went crazy with snotlust and started jamming his nose-tentacles into almost every background alien in the place.

So how has this magnificent nutjob been remembered? The Disney era downgraded him simply to Jerriko, and the entirety of his story is now "yes, he was there that day."

The new canon is growing more and more every minute, but the Anazati remain glaringly absent. If Dave Filoni and everyone else at Lucasfilm can make the giant, talking rabbit Jaxxon work – and turn him into a toy, no less – then, by all the various interstellar gods, they can make snot vampires work, too.

Eirik Gumeny is the author of the Exponential Apocalypse series, a five-book saga of slacker superheroes, fart jokes, and assorted B-movie monsters, and he recently added werewolves and assassins to The Great Gatsby. He’s also on Twitter a bunch.

Top Image: Lucasfilm