Chewbacca is buck wild as a character concept but so ingrained in the cultural canon that the full absurdity of him is often overlooked. Here's a middle-aged 200 year old space fellow who's eight feet tall with a full body perm, naked except for a bandolier he never uses, knows the local lingua franca but exclusively communicates by screaming and growling in his own language, has adopted Harrison Ford as a pet, will rip your arms out of their sockets if you beat him at chess. Go into any dog park and you'll bump into at least one mutt bearing his name. Roger Ebert despised him. In 1997 MTV gave him a Lifetime Achievement award.

From Star Wars: The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary.