While the thought of a crew member purposefully including themselves in the final product is fun, Redditor u/itsjustmonty_ eventually posted a multi-part explanation of the mystery. Initially, they claimed it was an accident from a bluescreen shot and that the character was mistakingly included when developing the whole shot.
However, this explanation was nixed in favor of a better, simpler one. It’s just what it appears: a face in the background captured by accident. “What appears to have happened here,” u/itsjustmonty_ reports, “is that the camera traveled slightly too far and somehow no one noticed while cropping the footage.” They include a string of uncompressed shots from the Blu-ray and a wild behind-the-scenes clip that shows a crew member off in the distance while filming the shot roughly 10 seconds in. In other posts, they reiterate that this was not their original discovery and they are simply reposting on Reddit to shed light on something that bubbled up from other corners of Star Wars fandom.
Regarding the real-life identity of Anakin’s overlooker, an early suggestion was that it could be Nash Edgerton, Ewan McGregor’s stunt double. In a final update, the original poster details that the person’s identity remains unknown and settles on “Mustafar Man” as the newly discovered character’s canon name. The title fits until someone from Hollywood says they slipped into the shot two decades ago.
