Star Wars Keeps Getting Its Lava Planets Wrong

Star Wars keeps getting its lava planets, like Mustafar, wrong. There’s a sense in which Star Wars has always oversimplified its planets and moons. Endor is the Forest Moon, Kef Bir is an Ocean Moon; Tatooine is just deserts, and Mustafar is a volcanic wasteland. In the real world, of course, inhabitable planets probably have a lot more diversity. After all, our own world has deserts and oceans, forests, and plains.

Volcanic landscapes are particularly striking. There’s something ferocious and unbridled about them, and Star Wars routinely uses them as the backdrop to some of the franchise’s most dramatic scenes. The fires of Mustafar burned away Anakin Skywalker and forged him into Darth Vader; the Mandalorian desperately attempted to escape through a lava tube, and he and Baby Yoda only survived through sacrifice. And yet, for all that’s the case, Star Wars has never really thought much about how these volcanic worlds would operate. As a result, both the films and the TV shows have made some pretty amusing errors.

The first principle that needs to be understood is this: volcanic gases are the driving force of volcanic eruptions. An erupting volcano can be likened to a bottle of a fizzy soft drink that’s been shaken too much, and explodes in your hands; while the liquid gets everywhere, the cause of the explosion was the gases. It’s true that Star Wars has typically used landscapes noted for lava flows, thus less explosive, but that just means the gases are releasing steadily. And this is important because these gases are both toxic and searingly hot. In Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Anakin and Obi-Wan would be struggling to breathe as they fought on top of that lava fall on Mustafar, and frankly they’d both have probably wound up asphyxiated, their lungs filled with gas. They’d also have been spending all their times dodging lava bombs, too.

A scene in The Mandalorian is even more amusing. The landscape of Nevarro is marked by volcanism, with the Mandalorian and his crew traveling over old lava flows; technically the type of lava seen in The Mandalorian is a type called “Pahoehoe,” a common type of basaltic lava. This is actually the easiest to travel across, because it forms that distinctive hard, ribbony crust, as opposed to the sharp and jagged a’a flows. But, in the season finale, IG-11 sacrifices himself by leaping into the heart of a lava flow and marching forward, until finally his metallic shell melts away. This scene, of course, is absolutely impossible – but it neatly explains why Star Wars keeps getting its lava planets so badly wrong. It’s because filmmakers keep forgetting that lava doesn’t share the same properties as water; lava is thick, viscous, and heavy, meaning IG-11 probably wouldn’t have sunk into the flow at all.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has rightly been heavily criticized, but oddly enough it’s the first film to really understand a lava planet. One early scene sees Kylo Ren travel to Mustafar, where he slaughters a group of dark side cultists who stand between him and his grandfather’s Wayfinder. Mustafar is traditionally portrayed as a volcano world, and yet Kylo Ren is seen in a forested area named Corvax Fen, indicating life finds a way even in the most hostile of environments. Rae Carson’s novelization expands upon this, with Kylo Ren impressed when he senses the planet is seeming with life, all connected through the Force. “Like those hapless cultists he’d just killed, who’d been obsessed with protecting Vader’s legacy. Or this forest of twisted irontrees they endeavored to cultivate. Or even the extremophile organisms that swarmed the lava flows. All fragile but determined, mutilated but indomitable.” For the first time, Star Wars was getting its volcanic hellscapes right.

About The Author

Thomas Bacon
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Tom Bacon is one of Screen Rant’s staff writers, as well as a Peer Mentor for new writers and a member of the Care Team, offering support and a listening ear to members of the Comics group. A lifelong fan of major franchises including Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Marvel, Tom is delighted his childhood is back – and this time it’s cool. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon.

A graduate of Edge Hill University, Tom remains strongly connected with his alma mater as a volunteer chaplain. He’s heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he’s into British politics too.

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