Powet Alphabet: A is for Admiral Ackbar

by Adam, filed in Movies, Powet Alphabet on Jan.01, 2011

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Admiral Ackbar plays a vital role in the Rebel Alliance’s attack on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. But no one cares about that. He’s really only ever remembered as the guy who says “It’s a trap”.

Ackbar is� an Admiral. That’s a pretty big deal. As the Supreme Commander of the Rebel Alliance Fleet he’s the guy who leads the whole attack at the Battle of Endor.

Ackbar looks like a fish and his race is aptly named “Mon Calamari” from the world� “Mon Calamari” � Calimari being a delicacy for real world people to eat. This of course leads to obvious jokes.

Admiral Ackbar and Mothma Ordering Calimari in a restaurant

Ackbar’s ship is the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser Home One. It’s kind of weird looking and used to be a a civilian ship but was retrofitted for combat in the war against the Empire.

Ackbar also did a lot of other stuff in the Expanded Universe. Of course the Expanded Universe isn’t canon, it’s for bitches, so I’m not going to talk about that. If you care about that shit then read about it at Wookiepedia.

Ackbar and Wedge Antilles from some EU shit

In reality Ackbar was not actually played by a giant fish man. This illusion is created by state of the art pre-CG special effects! For long shots showing most of the body there was simply an Ackbar mask.

Close up shots with dialogue involved a half body puppet! This allowed for Ackbar’s facial movements to make him look like� well a big talking fish man. He was controlled by puppeteer Tim Rose, who also controlled many other puppets such as Salacious Crumb, Jabba’s little gimp guy, and Sy Snootles, the weird dancer girl in Jabba’s palace with the aardvark mouth. For more on Tim Rose check out his official web site.

So all that but� yeah� he’s just the “It’s a Trap” guy after all. This line has made quite an impact on pop culture and � well geek culture. Whenever a geek perceives a “trap” it is mandatory to express it being a trap in their finest Ackbar voice. Should the trap be on the Internet, a place that many geeks frequent, a picture of the Admiral to accompany this statement is commonplace.

Admiral Ackbar thinks marriage is a trap

Beyond the simplest use other permutations have become commonplace. “It’s a �” leading to a word that sound even the slightest bit like “Trap” is also acceptable.