Babu Frik is the Best Part of ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’

Now streaming on Disney+, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the epic final chapter of what Star Wars fans know as the Skywalker Saga. To wit, the film’s final action sequence is a thrilling space battle bigger than anything we’ve seen in the franchise before. Friends, heroes, and allies come from across the galaxy to stop Emperor Palpatine’s clone from retaking control. However, of all these noble warriors, one stands above the rest. Babu Frik is the hero Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker needed, and he’s the best part of the film.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker follows Rey (Daisy Ridley), Poe (Oscar Isaac), and Finn (John Boyega) as they embark on a scavenger hunt across the galaxy in search of a Sith Wayfinder that will lead them to Exegol, the Sith homeworld. When C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) manages to translate some ancient Sith as a clue, our heroes need to find a mechanic good enough to extract it from his memory. They go to Kijimi and get the help of droidsmith Babu Frik (Shirley Henderson).

At approximately four inches tall, Babu Frik doesn’t look like much, but his talents are unbelievable. He’s able to not only extract the message in no time, but he manages to save C-3PO from self-destruction. Babu Frik is a legend! A talent! A savior! But that’s not why Babu Frik is so damn wonderful. Of all the flourishes that director JJ Abrams adds to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Babu Frik is the one that reminds me of weird Star Wars. That is, the best Star Wars.

If you’ve watched the new Star Wars films, you’ll notice that almost all of them go out of their way to include a “Cantina” scene that evokes the wonder of the original Mos Eisley Cantina scene in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. While these scenes are full of strange aliens, they’ve started to feel predictable. Hence they’ve been ironically losing the sense of strangeness or uncertainty that made the original Cantina scene so iconic.

Babu Frik, however, has big Mos Eisley Cantina energy. He’s this mangy little character who doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the universe. Even Rey, a Jedi who finds communicating with droids and aliens and injured serpents a breeze, seems stymied when Babu speaks. (I honestly don’t know why Rey went from being able to heal a serpent with the Force to sneering at Babu Frik, but I’m sure the novelization explains it away.)

A lot of Babu Frik’s charm comes from Scottish actress Shirley Henderson’s incredible voice performance. She tackles each of his strange lines with an enthusiasm that makes you intuit immediately that Babu Frik is a well-meaning weirdo, aka the best kind of Star Wars side character. In fact, Babu Frik is so arresting that he’s maybe the only character I’ve found people casually quoting months after the film was in theaters. (We’re copying his exultant “Hey Hey!”, of course.)

Although his total screen time in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker clocks in at only a few minutes, Babu Frik’s tiny body casts a long shadow of influence on the film itself. He reminds us of the chaotic energy that imbued classic Star Wars’s best moments, and his randomness recaptures the wonder of the original Mos Eisley Cantina scene.

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Where to stream Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker