Jabba the Hutt

Jabba Desilijic Tiure, or simply Jabba the Hutt, (596 BBY–4 ABY) (offspring of Zorba The Hutt) is a character in the fictional Star Wars galaxy. He appears in, chronologically, the first, fourth, and last chapters of the series, ', ', and '. Jabba is of the Hutt race and, like most of his species, a gangster. Hutts are a large slug-like race with thick, leathery skin, human-like arms, large amber eyes, and wide mouths. A Hutt may weigh in excess of several tons. They speak Huttese, a language reminiscent of Quechua.

Episode IV

Prior to ', Jabba sent Han Solo on a Kessel run to smuggle spice. However Han was forced to dump the spice when he was boarded by an Imperial starship. Jabba demanded that Han pay him the value of the cargo. When the smuggler failed to pay him back, he put a price on Han's head. Greedo attempted to collect the bounty, but was killed for his efforts.

Related Topics:
Han Solo - Kessel - Greedo

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Re-released version

George Lucas filmed a scene for ' in which Jabba confronted Solo in the Millennium Falcon's launch bay, but this scene did not appear in the original 1977 theatrical release. In this scene, following the death of Greedo, Jabba met Han in the Millennium Falcon's hangar bay, where he agreed to let Han go, in exchange for a premium of 15%, with a warning that if Han delayed payment again, he would have a price on his head so high that Han would not be able to go near a civilized star system.

Related Topics:
George Lucas - 1977 - Millennium Falcon

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In the unaltered film footage, Jabba was portrayed by a stocky male actor (Declan Mullholland) in a shaggy coat. Mullholland was intended to be only a temporary stand-in that would be replaced by a stop-motion creature in post-production, but this process was unsuccessful due to the limitations in visual effects at the time. Eventually, the 1997 re-release of the film restored the sequence, but with a CGI version of Jabba (more mobile than suggested by his sedentary Return of the Jedi appearance) that obscured the original actor, and with newly recorded dialogue in the Huttese language (also introduced in the later film).

Related Topics:
Stop-motion - Post-production - 1997 re-release of the film - CGI - Return of the Jedi

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A challenge was that the scene had been staged for two ordinary-sized humanoid characters, and Harrison Ford, playing Solo, had walked around the other actor without allowance for the bulk and large tail that the later version of Jabba would have. Lucas and his effects team dealt with this by manipulating the image so that Solo appears to walk over Jabba's tail and Jabba yelps in pained surprise. This somewhat humorous effect was not entirely popular with fans of the series, since it was inconsistent with the plot. In another odd twist, as Solo leaves Jabba for his ship, he says that Jabba is a "wonderful human being", which may be intended ironically since Jabba is neither wonderful nor a human being.

Related Topics:
Harrison Ford - Ironically

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Further improvements in CGI techniques led to yet another version of the scene for the 2004 re-release, improving Jabba's appearance.

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