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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragon-Slayer" data-source="post: 3697125" data-attributes="member: 19577">I would say that in Star Wars new creatures show the diversity of life in the universe. While banthas and taun-tauns are both horned mammals and beasts of burden used by humans/aliens they are beasts of burden out of necessity and were domesticated to fill the role that a creature like a horse plays to sentient beings. When showing other planets in a story it is more interesting and believable to portray life as diverse and not standard. While Star Wars is fantasy the fact that the planets/moons are different from each other makes strange and uniqhe lifeforms more believable and easier for us to accept.     In standard fantasy and many of its offshoots, like sword & sorcery what we commonly encounter is known as a "secondary world", which is an earth-like world that has many qualities that we are familiar with and can identify with to get into the story and not try to wrap our minds around a plethora of new concepts. In fantasy such as Star Wars we expect new critters because we know that the level of technology is very different from standard fantasy and we know that the new worlds (each an entirely new setting) will or at least should be diverse enough to for us to find these new lifeforms interesting enough to want to learn more about them.    The Dark Crystal is an excellent example of a story stepping outside of the norm and heading out into new territory. For the telling of that story an alien landscape and removal of flora and fauna that we readily recognize doesn't make the story harder to dive into or the realism any tougher to accept. And while there is a sequel coming out I believe that it was meant to be more of a one-off story and not a series, the story is self-contained in one neat package, in such a case the weirdness factor can be pushed further to enhance the exotic setting.</blockquote>

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