That time Chewbacca accidentally became Bigfoot

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According to Star Wars canon wookies are a hardy, long-lived species that hail from a planet with skyscraper-sized trees and are strong enough to rip a man limb from limb. All factors that led to the wookie known as Chewbacca accidentally becoming Bigfoot. 

First things first it’s important to note that this particular story hails from a part of Star Wars canon that is, well, no longer canon. In fact, the story wasn’t technically canon when it was canon because the Star Wars universe prior to Disney taking a weed-whacker to it was messier than a wookie’s arsehole after a particularly heavy shit.

With that out of the way, the story we’re discussing is known in non-non-canon as Into the Great Unknown which details the final adventure of Han Solo, which ends with him crash landing on Earth after a clash with the Empire and being killed by Native Americans. Several of which Chewbacca hurls off a cliff in a furious rage upon seeing his best friend killed.

After sitting with Han Solo as his life ebbs away, Chewbacca becomes despondent and over the next few hundred years devolves to an almost feral state as he roams the woods, sporadically clashing with humans when they stray to close to Solo’s final resting place. Meaning some people in that universe were beaten to death by a giant wooly ape for getting to close to a spaceship driven by a skeleton.

Now these encounters eventually give way to a familiar human legend with Chewbacca becoming the cryptid known as Bigfoot. Something that leads to the wookie having a chance meeting with, of all people, Indiana Jones, who discovers the several hundred years old skeleton of Han Solo whilst investigating the legend and notes that he feels a strange, unspoken connection to it. Which yes, for everyone in the comments, we know is a reference to the fact both characters were played by the same actor.

Anyway, whilst this story is no longer canon, it does connect to the actual Star Wars universe in a roundabout way. In particular, an experience noted by the actor who originally played Chewbacca, Peter Mayhew who once noted that he had walked around the woods flanked by men with hi-visibility jackets while filming Return of the Jedi as they were genuinely worried that a hunter mistaking him for Bigfoot would quickscope him. A story that was the purported inspiration for the book in the first place.