There's a statistic that goes something like this:"'In London that you are only ever seven feet away from a rat" - I don't know how true this is but if you were to substitute the word "rat" for "Star Wars fan" and "London" for "Anywhere in the world" then I think I'd have a hard time arguing.
I have always loved "Star Wars." My dad took my older brother and I to watch "Return of the Jedi" at a cinema in our home town of Luton when I was six years old and the thing that captured my imagination the most were the huge array of weird and wonderful characters. From shiny know-it-all robots to sassy princesses, the films had them all, and what's more is I could collect the toys and recreate the story lines with my friends at school whilst doing all the funny voices.
Fast forward nearly 30 years and despite trying really hard, I haven't managed to grow up and put away childish things. I now have children of my own and it was when my two-year-old daughter got a set of Plasticine for Christmas and I found myself enjoying making things a bit more than her that I had the idea for "Plasticine Tatooine."
In a nutshell, the concept of the book is to create some of the lesser-known characters and imagine how bitter they must have been at not making it big, how badly they were treated on set or how cruelly their lives have panned out since the movies were released. Here are a few of the disgruntled cast members:
