Star Wars: The Force Awakens Character Inspired by the Beastie Boys

J.J. Abrams loves him some Beastie Boys. In Star Trek, he has a young James Kirk stealing a car and rocking out to the Beastie Boys classic, “Sabotage.” Now, it seems that love of the Beastie Boys has migrated over to The Force Awakens, where one of its characters also has its roots in Abrams’ musical taste.

While we’ve known about this Bullhead X-Wing pilot since concept art from The Force Awakens emerged back in July, we didn’t get his name until Force Friday, when the above toy came out, revealing his name to be Ello Asty. Now, Star Wars names tend to be on the weird side, but there’s usually some sort of meaning behind them, no matter how on-the-nose they are (I’m looking at you, Elan Sleazebaggano). So naturally, fans wondered what the name meant.

There were those that thought that it was a shout-out to Abrams’ hit show. You know: El-Oh Ess-Tee, or Ello Asty. But then, it became obvious that that wasn’t it at all.

That’s right. Ello Asty is named after the Beastie Boys album, Hello Nasty – just remove the first letter of each word. And in case there’s still any doubt about Abrams’ eternal devotion to the Beasties, have a closer look at his helmet:

Now, question for the Peanut Gallery. If you could name a Star Wars character after one of your favorite things, what would it be? Give us your best names in the comments below! Bonus points for telling us about that character and giving them traits.

(via Geek.com)

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Teresa Jusino

Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.

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