Quantifying Peter Mayhew

I think I've missed May the 4th in every time zone in the U.S., and it's already late in the day on May the 5th here in Australia. But this post has an unfortunate timeliness that has nothing to do with a Star Wars Celebration Day on the calendar.

As you probably know, Peter Mayhew died a couple days ago. And as you probably know, Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca in most of the Star Wars movies (in every Star Wars movie in which Chewbacca appeared up until The Force Awakens, which means he was replaced in The Last Jedi and Solo even before he died).

But this may be the only thing you know about Peter Mayhew, including what he looks like.

Because Peter Mayhew -- the memory of Peter Mayhew, anyway -- deserves for you to know what he looked like, here here is, or was:

There have been a lot of nice gestures toward the memory of Mayhew on social media, the nicest of which is the one I stole for the image above. (Though I do wonder why Obi-Wan doesn't get to stand with them also; did Alec Guinness die too long ago?) I myself have not been particularly sentimental about his passing, though, and I think it's because Mayhew is one of a number of Star Wars actors who had an unusual relationship with us.

As did many of my compatriots, I learned early on the names of all the Star Wars cast members. We didn't stop at Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. We went deep, learning with a fascination that exceeded the level of trivia the names Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, David Prowse, and yes, Peter Mayhew.

Even then, though, I kind of wondered what it meant that these actors played the characters they played.

Anthony Daniels -- C3PO, of course -- seemed to give the most recognizable "actor performance" of the four. Not only did he walk around inside the protocol droid's shiny metal costume, but he also provided Threepio's voice, which is at least 80% of the charm of that character.

But the others were a real gray area. On the other end of the spectrum from Daniels was Kenny Baker, who died in 2016. We all knew he played R2D2, but given that he did not make the noises R2D2 makes, and that no part of his physical appearance was visible or can be said to have manipulated the physiognomy of the robot, knowing that Baker was the guy sitting inside costume seemed, to me, abstract at best. And I hate to say that because I, too, view Baker as something of a beloved figure, just because.

Prowse, who is still alive, and Mayhew, who now is not, were the two in the middle. Clearly they brought something to their parts, as they walked around inside the costumes and contributed a physicality that was indeed important to both characters. But neither provided the voice for their characters. Prowse -- who played Darth Vader if you didn't know -- yielded much of what made the character iconic to James Earl Jones, while Chewbacca's inimitable wookiee noises were created by sound designer Ben Burtt.

I believe all those people on social media who were very sad that Peter Mayhew died, but I'm not sure even they understand what their relationship was to him. Although purists will likely shout me down on this, I'm not sure most people could tell the difference between Mayhew as Chewbacca in The Force Awakens or Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca in the last two films. And maybe that's only because Mayhew did such a good job giving birth to his essential Chewbacca-ness, allowing any old pretender to step into the role and for us to still love him. Chewbacca was pretty under-utlized in The Last Jedi, which I think is a failure of the script more than Suotamo's performance. I do think Suotamo is quite good in Solo, though.

In the end, it is impossible to know what another actor might have done with Chewbacca, because another actor did not play Chewbacca. Peter Mayhew did. And if any part of why we love him was the result of Mayhew's choices, then he deserves our love and our sorrow.

I don't think just anybody would lace his hands behind his head in a gesture of pride at Han Solo's line "Wookiees have been known to do that" in the original Star Wars. Mayhew gave a "walking carpet" personality. I don't think he was replaceable; I think if Joonas Suotamo successfully replaced him, it was because he studied Mayhew's creation with the same love and admiration we all felt.