We've all seen Star Wars planets from the vantage point of fantastic space and famous ground battles.
We even get to walk around places like Mos Eisley with our favorite characters and experience some of the local flavor.
But who lives in these places? How did they get there? What are all of these strange space creatures up to?
Here are some of the coolest Star Wars planets to know about, plus some surprising things you might not know about your favorite Star Wars planets!
1. Tatooine
There are enlightened robot brain spiders on Tatooine.
Centuries before settlers arrived on Tatooine, a mysterious religious order called the B'omarr monks built the fortress that would eventually become Jabba's Palace.
The monks strive to cut themselves off from all physical sensation in order to focus and enhance the power of the mind. When their final stage of enlightenment is reached, their brains are surgically removed and placed in nutrient-rich jars.
This is done to free their mind for years of perpetual thought, unencumbered by the physical world.
But sometimes the monk brains feel the need to get up and move around. To do this, they telepathically summon a pair of mechanical spider-like legs designed for the task.
The older disembodied brains use a 4-legged model. The younger ones use a more modern 6-legged model.
Jabba the Hutt once punished one of his rivals with this brain-removal procedure. He wanted to see if his victim's brain would survive—and unfortunately it did.
From then on, a clumsy brain spider could be seen aimlessly bumping into walls around the citadel.
In case you didn't know: you've seen one of these creepy mechanical spiders. In the beginning of Return of the Jedi, one walks behind Luke just as he enters Jabba's Palace. That scene is even cooler when you watch it knowing what that thing is!
2. Endor
There's a bunch of dumb space pirates stranded on the forest moon of Endor.
The Sanyassan Marauders are a reptilian-humanoid species from the planet Sanyassa IV. A group of several dozen of them crash landed on the fourth moon of Endor about a century before the events of the original Star Wars trilogy.
They imagine themselves as having once been a scourge to space travelers, but they didn't know how to pilot the ships they stole. Their fabled reign of terror was short lived. (If there ever was one.)
They were forced to crash land on the moon when their ship encountered the complex gravity patterns of the Endor system. Their pilot could barely fly in the best of conditions—so he was executed for his failure.
This left no one among the group who knew how to fix or operate the ship. So they stripped the craft and incorporated its pieces into the construction of a crude castle.
The ship's defense systems were installed as part of the castle's fortifications. The Marauders ended up fearing this security measure more than their enemies... because they didn't know how to turn the thing off.
The group's leader King Tarek believes their salvation relies on finding a power source that will miraculously allow them to escape when somehow plugged into his disassembled attack ship.
This is the only solution for escape that the Marauders have managed to come up with in the century that they've been stranded. They might be stuck for a little while longer.
3. Coruscant
There's a massive literal underworld on Coruscant whose inhabitants never see the light of day.
The city planet of Coruscant—or "Galactic City"—is home to more than one trillion citizens.
The planet manages to accommodate this massive number of inhabitants by constructing its dense city blocks on top of each other. There are 5,127 levels of these blocks covering almost every inch of the original planetary surface.
At the top of this vertical urban sprawl, huge skyscrapers reach 3.7 miles into the atmosphere. The largest of these towers hold well over one million of the planet's most affluent citizens. These fortunate Coruscantis breathe clean, filtered air.
The bulk of the remaining population do not enjoy such luxuries.
Level 5 is the lowest level known to be habitable. The levels below 5 are the domain of strange monsters and creatures who eat scraps, fungus, and each other.
Levels 5 to 5127 are home to billions of blue-collar and middle-class workers. The higher up you go, the less lawless and more affluent the stacked blocks become.
A majority of the lower-level population has never seen the sky—and never will.
Their lives are defined by violence, depredation, malnourishment, and decay. The air they breathe is contaminated with toxic fumes from factory waste and vehicle exhaust.
Even the better-quality air on the upper levels compels most visitors of Galactic City to bring their own oxygen supply to last the duration of their stay.
Coruscant looks grand and majestic on the outside, but seems to only provide a tolerable existence for the ultra-wealthy. Unless you're well-connected and obscenely rich, the planet just doesn't seem worth the trouble.