Porg (2024)

Porgs are small sea avian creatures native to the planet Ahch-To. They appear in the 2017 film Star Wars: The Last Jedi and make a cameo appearance in the 2019 film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Background

Behavior

Porgs are extremely inquisitive creatures with docile temperaments. When they discover new things, especially shiny objects, porgs are immediately smitten with them. As aquatic birds, porgs love water for both swimming and drinking. They are easily panicked when threatened. Porgs can make different calls, but when pleased, they croon a special song. However, they can also be completely silent when necessary, and are very stealthy when hunting for prey. Porgs enjoy being petted and scratched, especially behind their ears. Infant porgs are called porglets^[1], and a group of porgs is called a "murder".^[3]

Since they favor cold environments, they can be found roosting on cliffs of the First Jedi Temple, building nests and flying short distances. Thanks to their waterproof feathers, porgs can make short dives into the ocean to catch fish, some of which are fed to porglets.

Physical appearance

Porgs are pudgy aliens that are several inches tall and covered in feathers (with the exception of their legs). Male porgs are slightly larger than females.^[4][3] The coloring of the porg varies, but the majority have brown feathers with a white underside and orange patches surrounding their eyes. This coloring also works as a natural camouflage. While porgs resemble normal birds, they have no beak, but rather a whiskered, otter-like snout containing sharp teeth and elongated canines. They have large brown eyes and nictating membranes.

Appearances

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Porgs appear on Ahch-To, hunting for fish in the seas around the First Jedi Temple. When Rey, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 travel to the island searching for Luke Skywalker, a couple of porgs investigate the Skywalker lightsaber after Luke throws it off a cliff behind him, although Rey retrieves it before they could turn the lightsaber on. During the evening, Chewbacca kills and roasts two porgs to eat. A few porgs stare at him before he could consume one, not wanting the Wookiee to eat their friends. Chewbacca scares them away, then notices one porg that stayed behind with a mournful look. Chewbacca scares it off as well, but decides to put down his meal to contemplate his actions.

Later, at least four porgs (and some porglets) start occupying the Millennium Falcon. Despite initially viewing them as nuisances, Chewbacca grows fond of the porgs and develops a friendship with them. However, this does not stop him from swatting them away when they inadvertently interfere with his piloting, such as when they start standing on the Falcon's control panel. When the Millennium Falcon arrives on Crait, one of the porgs accompanies Chewbacca during the battle on the salt planet.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

A few porgs appear on Ahch-To where they watch Rey burn down Kylo Ren's TIE whisper when she decides to live in exile just like Luke did once, right before she meets his Force spirit.

Star Wars: Forces of Destiny

Porgs are the subject of the episode "Porg Problems", where they interact with Rey during her training on Ahch-To, and the episode "Porgs!", where they tear blue wiring out of the Millennium Falcon for blue moss in their nest, which was later recovered by Chewbacca and R2-D2.

Star Wars Blips

The porgs appear in this short series. In the episode "Keep Away", a group of porgs run carrying BB-8's head while the droid purses them, trying to recover it. In the episode "Stowaway", BB-8 and Chewbacca get annoyed with an agitated porg inside the Falcon.

Gallery

Trivia

• Pablo Hidalgo states during an interview that the porgs are the Star Wars counterpart to the real-world puffin.^[1]
  • Director Rian Johnson, producer Ram Bergman, and the designer Jake Lunt Davies further explained that because the location they chose to film the scenes on Ahch-To (the island of Skellig Michael, located off the southern coast of Ireland) is a bird sanctuary where the puffins are present in a very large number, they couldn't physically get rid of them and digitally removing them would be very difficult. So, they had the idea to create an equivalent species to have on Luke's island.^[2][5]
• Puppets, animatronics, and CGI were used to make the porgs.^[1]
• The sound designer Ren Klyce revealed that the porg's shriek was created by combining the sounds from a turkey call, chickens, and doves.^[6]
• Concept art showed a murder of porgs accidentally killing one of their own when one porg activates the Skywalker lightsaber, causing the blade to activate while the second porg is looking down the lightsaber's blade emitter.
• In the 2022 live-action adaptation of Pinocchio, one of the cuckoo clocks in Geppetto's workshop have cuckoo birds that resemble Porgs.

References

External links

• Porg on StarWars.com (backup link on Archive.org)