Home Prisoner Skiff Second Skiff Sail Barge

This is the Skiff Guard posterboy, the one that all other Skiff Guards look up to and try to emulate. For years, this character was referred to simply as "Weequay" but that has been determined by the EU gods to now refer to his species, not his name. (Actually, it probably also had something to do with the Weequay Pirates in the new Clone Wars cartoon). Since the ILM production crew nicknamed this alien "Queequeg" (from the character in Herman Melville's Moby Dick) way back in the pre-production days of Return of the Jedi, that now seems to be the new, accepted canonical name for him.

Screen shots:
Queequeg stands front and center on the Prisoner Skiff and is the guard who pushes Luke out onto the gangplank. Thus, he is nearly impossible to miss:
Queequeg is also the only Skiff Guard to share those much coveted 'hero shots' with Luke Skywalker:
The above shot was flipped for the movie and appears below in its corrected form:
Luke goes over the gangplank and the fun begins:
Luke jumps right over Queequeg's head...
...and attacks the guards behind Queequeg, Luke is never shown confronting Queequeg directly:
In fact, when the Skiff Master goes overboard, you can still see Queequeg standing on the gangplank:
kithaba barada
However, in the very next shot, when Luke goes to untie Han and Chewie, Queequeg is gone and we don't see him again, he vanishes from the film and audiences' memories:

Other images:


The original Weequay mask. The pierced nose suggests that this mask was used for the Weequay Skiff Master. This mask was reused for Ak-Rev in the 1997 Return of the Jedi: Special Edition. It was also used extensively in the Prequels:
kithaba barada

For questions, comments, or suggestions you can email me at rosario.nathan@gmail.com