One of the best things the Star Wars franchise has going for it is all the stupid names. Everything is named something insane, and often for the worst reasons. Obi Wan Kenobi’s home planet is named Stewjon after Jon Stewart. There is a senator in the prequels named Greblieps, who is the same kind of alien as ET, because “Greblieps” is “Spielberg” backwards. Some names are dumb for no reason. Kit Fisto, Salacious Crumb, Therm Scissorpunch, Mercuiral Swift (no relation to Taylor), Porkins. The list goes on and on, like an opening exposition crawl. And, of course, the genre of song played at the Mos Eisley Cantina: jizz. We all know the music that Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes play is called jizz. But what new entries in the Star Wars extended universe presuppose is, maybe it’s not?
A new official short story collection, From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi, asserts that this style of music is actually called jatz, okay? So it’s not inappropriate anymore, and furthermore shut up. Told from the POV of Max Rebo (the bandleader at Jabba’s palace), the story refers to him laying down a hot jatz solo. The diehard jizz fans weren’t having it.
@drewparker2k After a long day on the moisture farm theres nothing like going down to the cantina and filling your ears w/ some jizz #starwars #fyp #drewparker2k
♬ Can You Hear The Music - Ludwig Göransson
But according to the AV Club, the relationship between jatz and jizz is slightly more complicated than a giant corporation sanding the pervy edges off an acquired IP. “Jatz” actually predates “jizz” as the name of a space music genre. An argument could be made that, maybe, Figrin D’an plays jizz and Max Rebo plays jatz? It’s just our stupid earth ears that can’t tell the difference.