'Star Wars' characters, even Chewbacca, get shaves (pictures)

Though the population of the "Star Wars" universe was able to create things like lightsabers and hyperdrive, it appears it wasn't able to do much about facial hair. Across the galaxy are mustachioed admirals and smugglers, bearded Jedis and counts, and, yes, even a wookiee who could have benefited from time in a barber's chair.

West Coast Shaving, a purveyor of shaving supplies, wondered what some of the "Star Wars"' characters would have looked like with clean upper lips and chins, so it got out its digital razors and got to work.

The result is a series of before and after shots called "Shaving 'Star Wars,'" and CNET's Crave blog is the first to have a look.

The series kicks off with this image of Admiral Ozzel, Darth Vader's right-hand man until the Sith Lord telekinetically choked him for failing in a raid on the rebels on planet Hoth. Maybe if he didn't have that slightly irritating mustache, Vader would have taken it easy on him.

The mustache on the smooth-talking smuggler Lando Calrissian somehow perfectly suited his character. But maybe it also brought him bad luck. Without it, he might never have lost the Millennium Falcon to that other smooth-talking rogue, Han Solo.

Without his mustache, Biggs looks a lot more like the childhood friend of Luke Skywalker he once was than the pilot who shielded him from Darth Vader's attack and allowed the young Jedi to drop his proton torpedoes down the Death Star's thermal exhaust port to blow it to bits.

After spending nearly 70 years as a Jedi practicing the light side of the force, Count Dooku switched over to the dark side and took the title Darth Tyranus (one of the coolest handles in all of sci-fi, if you ask me). Maybe all that sinister facial hair finally got to him?

Like master, like student. Qui-Gon Jinn was the student of Count Dooku, so maybe that's where he came up with the idea that facial hair was the way to go. As we'll see in the next slide, the Order of the Beard was to continue.

Obi-Wan was the student of Qui-Gon Jinn, and like his teacher's teacher, he too adopted a furry face, proving that there's clearly a link between facial hair and wisdom in the "Star Wars" universe. Even in the "shaved" version of Obi-Wan, it looks like his stubble is strong.

Continuing the lineage of master passing facial hair (um, we mean knowledge) down to student, we have Luke Skywalker (Obi-Wan's protege) as an older, wiser Jedi, as he will appear in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" this December.

Hoth, where Bren Derlin served as a major at the Alliance headquarters, is a cold place, so it's probably best if he keep that mustache to save his upper lip from the freezing temperatures. Who knows, it might even keep him from having to crawl inside a tauntaun.

And last we come to the furriest of them all, Chewbacca. Wookiees aren't exactly known for their grooming habits, but here we see what Han Solo's right-hand beast would look like with a little cleaning up. It's kind of a reverse goatee, don't you think? Handsome devil.