The Grand Moff Tarkin, disintegrated when Rebel forces destroyed the first Death Star in 1977, represented a grievous loss to the Empire. For one thing, Tarkin was the only man capable of restraining Darth Vader from random choking of Empire officials. "It's really played havoc with our command structure," a security guard admitted on condition of anonymity. "The company reference chart is never up to date."

Even more critically, Tarkin was the only high official capable of producing an heir. "I'm sort of impotent myself," said the Dark Emperor in an interview with Time Magazine. "I'd hoped my good buddy Moff would help me out, but he went zaparino." Thus the eventual succession to the throne, and the Empire itself, were in jeopardy.

However, a stray tie-fighter pilot accidentally stumbled upon an astounding object: the Grand Moff Tarkin's nose, tumbling in space.

Officials were flabbergasted. "When a reactor core of that size is exploded, you really expect everything within thousands of kilometers to be reduced to atoms. So we had no reason for hope." Scientists concluded that Tarkin had his nose rebuilt as a miniature escape pod, in anticipation of just this eventuality.

Retrieval of the nose was only step one. "It's not the same thing as having wigglies in the bank," points out the Emperor. A symbiotically compatible organism had to be developed, and the nose grafted on. The result? Jennifer Love Hewitt.

"The Grand Moff Tarkin was a bold and ruthless leader, but if you recall, he wasn't exactly a brick house," says scientist Bunch Tightly. "We had to make the new host organism a bit more, shall we say, yielding to the touch. That nose gave us a lot to overcome."

Fortunately, Love Hewitt has excelled in this respect. "She's not exactly an actress," affirms her agent. "She learned that cute head-tilting maneuver from her dog Floofy. But any self-respecting male looks at her, no matter what she's doing, and goes 'Dang -- I wanna get down with that.' Hey -- when you're dealing with the master race, whatcha gonna do? Just roll over and wait for the burning to go away."