KUALA LUMPUR ¨C Junk is surprisingly pervasive in ¡°Star Wars,¡± playing an understated role in nearly every film in the series.
In ¡°The Phantom Menace,¡± we meet young Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader, working at a small electronics scrap yard and repair shop. In ¡°A New Hope,¡± Luke Skywalker¡¯s uncle buys R2-D2 and C-3PO from a group of Jawas, a species that drive massive, sand-crawling junk trucks. The recently released ¡°Rise of Skywalker¡± is largely a coming-of-age story for Rey, the last of the Jedi, who spent her youth scavenging electronic scrap on Jakku, a remote outer planet.
As a third-generation descendent of earthbound scrap-metal recyclers, I¡¯ve subjected myself to repeated ¡°Star Wars¡± viewings (even of the bad films), partly just to spot all the junkyard tidbits. Over the years, I¡¯ve developed a theory or two about the waste and recycling economy in the series, and enjoyed sharing it with (primarily) other junkyard descendants.
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