Meet The Porgs and ‘The Caretakers’ From Luke Skywalker’s Island

Via Ew.com:

Who doesn’t like porgs? They’re all cute, and fluffy, and ingratiating…

But they get everywhere.

Below, in a new image from The Last Jedi, we see Chewbacca at the helm of the Millennium Falcon with one such interloper.

These penguin-like wide-eyed creatures are native to the planet of Ahch-To, site of the first Jedi temple, and they’re just one type of new creature the Dec. 15 film introduces to the Star Wars menagerie.

The porgs are so ubiquitous, they even leaked out ahead of time, sneaking past Lucasfilm security to bounce around the internet. In real life, they were puppets created through Neal Scanlan’s creature shop, with wide black eyes and furry, flapping wings.

Writer-director Rian Johnson said that although Luke Skywalker retreated to Ahch-To, he didn’t want the Jedi to be alone. Inspiration for the porgs came during a visit to the Irish island of Skellig Michael, where the final scenes of The Force Awakens were shot.

“If you go to Skellig at the right time of year, it’s just covered in puffins, and they’re the most adorable things in the world,” Johnson tells EW. “So when I was first scouting there, I saw these guys, and I was like, oh, these are part of the island. And so the Porgs are in that realm.”

But there is another alien life-form inhabiting the primeval Jedi temple.

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