Jabba the Hutt
Encyclopedia
Jabba the Hutt is a fictional character
in George Lucas
's space opera
film saga Star Wars
. Designed as a large, slug
-like alien
, his appearance has been described by film critic Roger Ebert
as "Dickensian," a cross between a toad
and the Cheshire Cat
.
Jabba is mentioned in Star Wars
(1977) and later in The Empire Strikes Back
(1980), where he was referred to as a ruthless gangster who had a bounty on Han Solo
, who owed him money for dumping an illegal cargo. When A New Hope was re-released in 1997, Jabba was included in a scene that had been cut out of the original film, further developed by computer-generated imagery
. Jabba appeared in the third film, Return of the Jedi
(1983), in which he was depicted by means of a complex animatronic puppet. He served as a minor antagonist throughout the initial series, where he was shown abusing his many cohorts, putting a bounty
on Solo's head, attempting to kill Luke Skywalker
, and enslaving Princess Leia Organa
, who eventually kills him. In the prequel film, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
, Jabba features in a cameo at the start of the Boonta Eve Classic pod race. Despite being an auxiliary character, Jabba has as much if not more crossover than any other character with the exception of Natalie Portman's characters, Padme and her decoy.
Jabba's role in Star Wars is primarily antagonist
ic. He is a 600-year-old Hutt
crime lord
and gangster
who employs a retinue of criminals, bounty hunter
s, smugglers
, assassins
, and bodyguard
s to operate his criminal empire. In his palace on the desert planet Tatooine
he keeps a host of entertainers at his disposal: slaves
, droids, and alien creatures. Jabba has a grim sense of humour, an insatiable appetite, and affinities for gambling
, slave girls and torture.
The character was incorporated into the Star Wars merchandising campaign that corresponded with the theatrical release of Return of the Jedi. Besides the films, Jabba the Hutt is featured in Star Wars literature
and is sometimes referenced by his full name, Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Jabba the Hutt's image has since played an influential role in popular culture
, particularly in the United States. The name is used as a satirical
literary device and a political caricature to underscore negative qualities such as morbid obesity and corruption
.
. He has a recurring role in Expanded Universe
literature and is the protagonist
of the comic book anthology Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal (1998), a collection of comics originally published in 1995 and 1996.
(1977), but his first appearance on film came in 1983 with the third installment of the original Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. Directed by Richard Marquand
and written by Lawrence Kasdan
and George Lucas, the first act of Return of the Jedi features the attempts of Princess Leia Organa
(Carrie Fisher
), the Wookiee
Chewbacca
(Peter Mayhew
), and Jedi Knight
Luke Skywalker
(Mark Hamill
) to rescue their friend, Han Solo
(Harrison Ford
), who had been imprisoned in carbonite in the events of the previous film, The Empire Strikes Back.
The captured Han is delivered to Jabba by the bounty hunter Boba Fett
(Jeremy Bulloch
) and placed on display in the crime lord's throne room. Friends of Han, namely, Lando Calrissian
(Billy Dee Williams
), droids C-3PO
(Anthony Daniels
) and R2-D2
(Kenny Baker
), Leia, and Chewbacca infiltrate Jabba's palace as part of a plot to save Han. Leia herself is soon captured and enslaved by the Hutt. Luke arrives to "bargain for Solo's life". Luke, however, is dropped into the pit of the monstrous rancor, just below Jabba's throne room. After Luke slays the beast, Jabba condemns Luke, Han, and Chewbacca to a slow death in the belly of the Sarlacc
, a large alien creature in Tatooine's Dune Sea. The execution turns into a skirmish at the Great Pit of Carkoon
where Luke escapes execution with the help of R2-D2 and defeats Jabba's guards. During the subsequent confusion, Leia strangles Jabba to death with her slave chains. Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2 escape just before Jabba's sail barge explodes, killing all inside.
The second film appearance of Jabba the Hutt is in the Special Edition of A New Hope which was released in 1997 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original Star Wars. Han Solo has a confrontation in a Mos Eisley
cantina
with the alien bounty hunter Greedo (Paul Blake and Maria De Aragon) that ends with the latter's death. According to Greedo, Jabba "has no use for smugglers who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser." Jabba had hired Han to smuggle the illicit drug spice from the asteroid Kessel. Han, however, was forced to dump his cargo when an Imperial
search team boarded the Millennium Falcon
, Han's ship. Greedo tells Han, "Jabba's put a price
on your head so large, every bounty hunter in the galaxy
will be looking for you." In a scene that had been cut from the 1977 original, Jabba and an entourage of bounty hunters are seen in a hangar bay outside the Millennium Falcon, trying to find the smuggler. Jabba confirms Greedo's last words and demands that Han pay the value of the shipment. Han promises to compensate Jabba as soon as he receives payment for delivering "goods"—Obi-Wan Kenobi
(Alec Guinness
), Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and C-3PO—to Alderaan. Jabba warns Han that if he is not paid back soon, he will post a bounty "so big, you won't be able to go near a civilized system." However, Han never completes his deal with the Hutt. This was actually taken from an unfinished scene for the original 1977 version of the film, in which Jabba was played by Declan Mulholland
. In the 1997 Special Edition version of the film, a CGI
rendering of Jabba replaces Mulholland, and his voice is redubbed in Huttese.
Jabba the Hutt makes his third film appearance in the 1999 prequel, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
. The character's scene is minor
and has little to do with the plot of the film. During the Boonta Eve Classic podrace at Mos Espa on Tatooine, in which nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd
) wins his freedom, Jabba the Hutt is featured in his grandstand accompanied by Gardulla the Hutt (a feminine Hutt) and his Twi'lek majordomo Bib Fortuna (Matthew Wood). Although he is the host of the race, Jabba is totally uninterested and even dozes off, missing the race's conclusion.
Jabba makes his fourth and final appearance in Star Wars: The Clone Wars
. In this 2008 film, Jabba the Hutt's son, Rotta, is captured by Separatists in an attempt to frame the Jedi and the Republic
. Anakin Skywalker and his padawan Ahsoka Tano
save Rotta and return him to Jabba, securing permission for the safe passage of Republic ships through his territory. Other than the movie, Jabba has also appeared in three episodes of the third season of the Clone Wars TV series. He appeared in the episode "Sphere of Influence" where his son Rotta also makes an appearance. Jabba is faced by Chairman Papanoida, who's daughters were kidnapped by one of his bounty hunters, Greedo. Jabba allows a blood sample of Greedo to be taken in order to prove that he is the kidnapper, but Greedo's cowardliness speaks first. In the episode "Evil Plans" Jabba hires the bounty hunter Cad Bane to bring him plans for the Senate building. When Bane returns successful, Jabba not only pays him, but also hires him for another task. He and the Hutt Council send Bane to free his uncle Ziro the Hutt from prison. (rather unexpected since Ziro helped kidnap his son.) Jabba makes one final short appearance in the episode "Hunt for Ziro" in which he is seen laughing with amusement hearing of Ziro's death at the hand of Sy Snootles, and pays her for delivering Ziro's holo-diary.
The first appearances of Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars Expanded Universe
literature was in Marvel Comics
' adaptations of A New Hope. In Six Against the Galaxy (1977) by Roy Thomas
, What Ever Happened to Jabba the Hut? (1979) and In Mortal Combat (1980), both by Archie Goodwin
, Jabba the Hutt (originally spelled Hut) appeared as a tall humanoid with a walrus
-like face, a topknot
, and a bright uniform. The official "Jabba" was not yet established as he had yet to be seen.
While awaiting the sequel to Star Wars, Marvel kept the monthly comic going with their own stories, one of which includes Jabba tracking Han Solo and Chewbacca down to an old hideaway they use for smuggling. However, circumstances force Jabba to lift the bounty on Solo and Chewbacca, thus enabling them to return to Tatooine
for an adventure with Luke Skywalker
—who has returned to the planet in order to recruit more pilots for the Rebel Alliance. In the course of another adventure, Solo kills the space pirate Crimson Jack and busts up his operation, which Jabba bankrolled. Jabba thus renews the reward for Solo's head and Solo later kills a bounty hunter who tells him why he is hunted once more. He and Chewbacca return to the rebels. (Solo mentions an incident with a "bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell" in the opening scenes of The Empire Strikes Back.)
The Marvel artists based Jabba on a character later named Mosep Binneed, an alien visible only briefly in the Mos Eisley cantina
scene of A New Hope. The 1977 mass market paperback novelization
of Lucas's Star Wars script describes Jabba as a "great mobile tub of muscle and suet
topped by a shaggy scarred skull", but gives no further detail as to the character's physical appearance or species
.
Later Expanded Universe novels and comics adopt the character's image as seen in the film. They also elaborate on his background prior to the events of the Star Wars films. For example, Zorba the Hutt's Revenge
(1992), a young adult novel by Paul and Hollace Davids
, reveals that Jabba's father is a powerful crime lord named Zorba the Hutt and that Jabba was born 596 years before the events of A New Hope, making him around 600 years old at the time of his death in Return of the Jedi. Ann C. Crispin
's novel The Hutt Gambit
(1997) explains how Jabba the Hutt and Han Solo become business associates and portrays the events that lead to a bounty being placed on Han's head. Other Expanded Universe stories—especially the anthology of Dark Horse
comics by Jim Woodring
titled Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal (1998)—likewise detail Jabba the Hutt's rise to the head of the Desilijic clan, his role in the criminal underworld of the Star Wars universe, and the establishment of his crime syndicate
on Tatooine in the Star Wars galaxy
's Outer Rim Territories.
Tales From Jabba's Palace
(1996), a collection of short stories edited by science fiction
author Kevin J. Anderson
, pieces together the lives of Jabba the Hutt's various minions in his palace and their relationship to him during the last days of his life. The stories reveal that few of the Hutt's servants are loyal to him and most are in fact plotting to have him assassinated
. When Jabba the Hutt is killed in Return of the Jedi, his surviving former courtiers join forces with his rivals on Tatooine and his family on the Hutt homeworld Nal Hutta make claims to his palace, fortune, and criminal empire. Timothy Zahn
's novel Heir to the Empire
(1991) reveals that a smuggler named Talon Karrde eventually replaces Jabba as the "big fish in the pond", and moves the headquarters of the Hutt's criminal empire off Tatooine.
as a "vile gangster" who amuses himself by torturing and humiliating his subjects and enemies. He surrounds himself with scantily-clad slave girls of all species
, chaining many of them to his dais
. The Star Wars Databank
—an official online database of Star Wars information—remarks that residents of his palace are not safe from his desire to dominate and torture. Jabba would send even his most loyal servants and prized possessions to their deaths. For example, in Return of the Jedi, the Twi'lek slave dancer Oola is fed to the rancor monster because she refuses to pander to his whim.
Jabba the Hutt's physical appearance is as grotesque as his character and reinforces his personality as a criminal deviant. As Han Solo puts it in Return of the Jedi, Jabba is a "slimy piece of worm-ridden filth." Film critic Roger Ebert
describes him as "a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat
", and astrophysicist
and science fiction writer Jeanne Cavelos
gives Jabba the "award for most disgusting alien." Science fiction authors Tom and Martha Veitch
write that Jabba's body is a "miasmic mass" of flesh that shakes as he laughs. He emits an unmistakable smell: "The Hutt's lardaceous body seemed to periodically release a greasy discharge, sending fresh waves of rotten stench" into the air. His swollen tongue drips with saliva as he feeds on creatures that resemble frogs and maggots. Jabba's appetite is insatiable and he is not discriminatory about his diet. For example, his jester, the Kowakian monkey-lizard Salacious B. Crumb, must make the Hutt crime lord laugh once a day, every day, or Jabba will eat him.
Jabba the Hutt does show rare moments of charity
, however. For instance, in one Expanded Universe story, he prevents a Chevin named Ephant Mon from freezing to death on an ice planet by covering him with his bloated layers of fat; the two are eventually rescued, and Ephant Mon becomes totally loyal to the crime lord, making him the only resident of Jabba's palace that the crime lord trusts. Also, in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Jabba seems to have genuine affection for his son Rotta, and is worried by his kidnapping and angered by his supposed death.
represent two of the more glaring changes to the character in the concept and creation process.
actor Declan Mulholland
to play the stand-in
and read Jabba the Hutt's lines wearing a shaggy brown suit. Lucas planned to replace Mulholland in post-production with a stop-motion
creature. The scene was meant to connect A New Hope to Return of the Jedi and explain why Han Solo was imprisoned at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Nevertheless, Lucas decided to leave the scene out of the final film on account of budget and time constraints and because he felt that it did not enhance the film's plot. The scene remained in the novelization, comic book, and radio adaptations of the film.
Lucas revisited the scene in the 1997 Special Edition release of A New Hope, restoring the sequence and replacing Mulholland with a CGI version of Jabba the Hutt and the English dialogue with Huttese, a fictional language
created by sound designer Ben Burtt
. Joseph Letteri, the visual effects supervisor for the Special Edition, explained that the ultimate goal of the revised scene was to make it look as if Jabba the Hutt was actually on the set talking to and acting with Harrison Ford and that the crew had merely photographed it. Letteri stated that the new scene consisted of five shots that took over a year to complete. The scene was polished further for the 2004 release on DVD, improving Jabba's appearance with advancements in CGI techniques, although neither release looks exactly like the original Jabba the Hutt puppet.
At one point of the original scene, Ford walks behind Mulholland. This became a problem when adding the CGI Jabba, since he had a tail that happened to be in the way. Eventually, this problem was solved by having Han stepping on Jabba's tail, causing the Hutt to react with a yelp of pain.
Lucas confesses that some people were upset about the CGI Jabba's appearance, complaining that the character "looked fake". Lucas dismisses this, stating that whether a character is portrayed as a puppet or as CGI, it will always be "fake" since the character is not real. He says he sees no difference between a puppet made of latex and one generated by a computer. The CGI character performed actions that the puppet could not, such as walking. Jabba's film appearance in The Phantom Menace was as a CGI based on the character from A New Hope.
Lucas based the CGI on the character as he originally appeared in Return of the Jedi. In this film, Jabba the Hutt is an immense, sedentary, slug-like creature designed by Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic Creature Shop. Design consultant Ralph McQuarrie
claimed, "In my sketches Jabba was huge, agile, sort of an apelike figure. But then the design went into another direction, and Jabba became more like a worm kind of creature." According to the 1985 documentary From Star Wars to Jedi, Lucas rejected initial designs of the character. One made Jabba appear too human—almost like a Fu Manchu
character—while a second made him look too snail-like. Lucas finally settled on a design that was a hybrid of the two. Return of the Jedi costume designer Nilo Rodis-Jamero commented,
, hairless animals that have no skeleton
and are hermaphroditic
. Jabba's head was modeled after that of a snake, complete with bulbous, slit-pupilled eyes and a mouth that opens wide enough to swallow large prey. His skin was given moist, amphibian
qualities. Jabba's design would come to represent almost all members of the Hutt species in subsequent Star Wars fiction.
In Return of the Jedi, Jabba is portrayed by a one-ton puppet that took three months and half a million dollars to construct. While filming the movie, the puppet had its own makeup artist. The puppet required three puppeteers to operate, making it one of the largest ever used in a motion picture. Stuart Freeborn
designed the puppet, while John Coppinger sculpted its latex, clay, and foam pieces. Puppeteers included David Alan Barclay, Toby Philpott, and Mike Edmonds
, who were members of Jim Henson
's Muppet
group. Barclay operated the right arm and mouth and read the character's English dialogue, while Philpott controlled the left arm, head, and tongue. Edmonds, the shortest of the three men (he also played the Ewok
Logray in later scenes) was responsible for the movement of Jabba's tail. Tony Cox, who also played an Ewok, would assist as well. The eyes and facial expressions were operated by radio control
.
Lucas voiced displeasure in the puppet's appearance and immobility, complaining that the puppet had to be moved around the set to film different scenes. In the DVD commentary to the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi, Lucas notes that if the technology had been available in 1983, Jabba the Hutt would have been a CGI character similar to the one that appears in the Special Edition scene of A New Hope.
Jabba the Hutt only speaks Huttese on film, but his lines are subtitled
in English. His voice and Huttese-language dialogue were performed by voice actor
Larry Ward
, whose work is not listed in the end credits. A heavy, booming quality was given to Ward's voice by pitching
it an octave
lower than normal and processing it through a subharmonic
generator. A soundtrack
of wet, slimy sound effects was recorded to accompany the movement of the puppet's limbs and mouth. The sounds were created by a hand running through a bowl of cheese casserole
and a muddy towel scraping along the inside of a garbage can.
Jabba the Hutt's musical theme throughout the film, composed by John Williams
, is played on a tuba
. One reviewer of Return of the Jedis soundtrack comments, "Among the new thematic ideas [of the score is] Jabba the Hutt's cute tuba piece (playing along the politically incorrect
lines of tubas representing fatness) ...." The theme is very similar to one Williams wrote for a heavyset character in Fitzwilly
(1967), though the theme does not appear on that film's soundtrack album
. Williams later turned the theme into a symphonic
piece performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra
featuring a tuba solo by Chester Schmitz. The role of the piece in film and popular culture has become a focus of study by musicologists
such as Gerald Sloan, who says Williams' piece "blends the monstrous and the lyrical."
According to film historian Laurent Bouzereau, Jabba the Hutt's death in Return of the Jedi was suggested by script writer Lawrence Kasdan. Lucas decided Leia should strangle him with her slave chain. He was inspired by a scene from The Godfather
(1972) where an obese character named Luca Brasi
(Lenny Montana
) is garrote
d by an assassin.
in scenes cut from the 1977 release of Star Wars
. In Mulholland's scenes as Jabba, Jabba is represented as a rotund Human dressed in a shaggy fur coat. George Lucas has stated his intention was to use an alien creature for Jabba, but the special effects technology of the time was not up to the task of replacing Mulholland. In 1997, the "Special Edition" re-releases restored and altered the original scene to include a computer generated portrayal of Jabba. In Return of the Jedi
, he was played by puppeteers Mike Edmonds
, Toby Philpott
, David Alan Bartley and voiced by Larry Ward
. Jabba is played by an uncredited voice-actor in The Phantom Menace
and in the ending credits, Jabba is credited as playing himself. His puppeteers have appeared in the documentaries From 'Star Wars' to 'Jedi': The Making of a Saga and Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi. David Alan Barclay, who was one of the puppeteers for Jabba in the film, played Jabba in the Super Nintendo video game version of Return of the Jedi. In the radio drama adaption
of the original trilogy, Jabba is played by Ed Asner
. In the film Star Wars: The Clone Wars
, Jabba is portrayed by Kevin Michael Richardson
. All other video game appearances of Jabba were played by Clint Bajakian
. Jabba was supposed to appear in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
, but was left out due to time restraints. A cutscene was produced featuring a conversation between Jabba and Juno Eclipse (voiced by Natalie Cox), which was scrapped from the game. He appears in the Ultimate Sith Edition.
. The character was produced and marketed as a series of action figure play sets by Kenner
/Hasbro
from 1983 to 2004. In the 1990s, Jabba the Hutt became the protagonist in his own comic book series collectively titled Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal.
Jabba's role in popular culture extends beyond the Star Wars universe and its fans. In Mel Brooks
' Star Wars spoof Spaceballs
(1987), Jabba the Hutt is parodied
as the character Pizza the Hutt, a cheesy blob shaped like a slice of pizza whose name is a double pun on Jabba the Hutt and the restaurant franchise Pizza Hut
. Like Jabba, Pizza the Hutt is a loan shark
and mobster. The character meets his demise at the end of Spaceballs when he becomes "locked in his car and [eats] himself to death." The Smithsonian Institution
's National Air and Space Museum
in Washington, D.C., included a display on Jabba the Hutt in the temporary exhibition
Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, which closed in 1999. Jabba's display was called "The Hero's Return," referencing Luke Skywalker's journey toward becoming a Jedi.
with repulsive obesity and corruption. The name is frequently utilized as a literary device—either as a simile
or metaphor
—to illustrate character flaw
s. For example, in Under the Duvet (2001), Marian Keyes
references a problem with gluttony
when she writes, "wheel out the birthday cake, I feel a Jabba the Hutt moment coming on." Likewise, in the novel Steps and Exes: A Novel of Family (2000), Laura Kalpakian
uses Jabba the Hutt to emphasize the weight of a character's father: "The girls used to call Janice's parents Jabba the Hutt and the Wookiee. But then Jabba (Janice's father) died, and it didn't seem right to speak of the dead on those terms." In Dan Brown
's first novel Digital Fortress
, an NSA technician is affectionately nicknamed Jabba the Hutt.
In his book of humor and popular culture The Dharma of Star Wars
(2005), writer Matthew Bortolin
attempts to show similarities between Buddhist
teachings and aspects of Star Wars fiction. Bartolin insists that if a person makes decisions that Jabba the Hutt would make, then that person is not practicing the proper spiritual concept of dharma
. Bortolin's book reinforces the idea that Jabba's name is synonymous with negativity:
Outside literature, the character's name has become an insulting term of disparagement. To say that someone "looks like Jabba the Hutt" is commonly understood as a slur to impugn that person's weight and/or appearance. The term is often employed by the media as an attack on prominent figures. For instance, actress and comedian Roseanne
endured what W. C. Goodman called "vitriolic attacks based on her weight" at the hands of The New York Observer columnist Michael Thomas who often compared her with "Star Wars blob monster" Jabba the Hutt. In "Starvin' Marvin in Space
", a 1999 episode of the animated television series South Park
, Christian Children's Fund
spokeswoman Sally Struthers
is portrayed as the Hutt and accused of gorging herself on food relief meant for starving Ethiopia
ns. Another reference appears in the Family Guy
episode "He's Too Sexy for His Fat" when Peter
mentions his husky ancestor Jabba the Griffin.
In another sense of the term, Jabba the Hutt has come to represent greed and anarchy
, especially in the business world. For instance, Michael Jordan
biographer Mitchell Krugel uses the term to disparage Chicago Bulls
's general manager Jerry Krause
after Krause made a comment about Jordan and other players' multi-million dollar contracts: "Krause added to his Jabba the Hutt image during the media gathering that preceded the opening of camp when he answered a question about the prospect of rebuilding the Bulls without Phil
or Michael in the imminent future by saying, 'Organizations win championships. Players and coaches are parts of organizations'." Jabba the Hutt ranked #5 on the Forbes Fictional 15
list of wealthiest fictional characters in 2008.
Jabba the Hutt has likewise become a popular means of caricature in American politics
. For example, opponents of California
Democratic
legislator Jackie Goldberg
commonly depict the politician as the Star Wars character. The Los Angeles Daily News
has caricatured her in cartoons as a grotesquely overweight Jabba the Hutt-like figure and the New Times LA
referred to Goldberg as "a human Jabba the Hutt who consumes the good while producing the bad." William G. Ouchi
uses the term to describe what he sees as the inefficient bureaucracy
of the public school system: "With all of these unnecessary layers of organizational fat, school districts have come to resemble Jabba the Hutt—the pirate leader in Star Wars."
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
's space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
film saga Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
. Designed as a large, slug
Slug
Slug is a common name that is normally applied to any gastropod mollusc that lacks a shell, has a very reduced shell, or has a small internal shell...
-like alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
, his appearance has been described by film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
as "Dickensian," a cross between a toad
Toad
A toad is any of a number of species of amphibians in the order Anura characterized by dry, leathery skin , short legs, and snoat-like parotoid glands...
and the Cheshire Cat
Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll's depiction of it in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Known for his distinctive mischievous grin, the Cheshire Cat has had a notable impact on popular culture.-Origins:...
.
Jabba is mentioned in Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
(1977) and later in The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner. The screenplay, based on a story by George Lucas, was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan...
(1980), where he was referred to as a ruthless gangster who had a bounty on Han Solo
Han Solo
Han Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise played by Harrison Ford. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire...
, who owed him money for dumping an illegal cargo. When A New Hope was re-released in 1997, Jabba was included in a scene that had been cut out of the original film, further developed by computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
. Jabba appeared in the third film, Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. It is the third film released in the Star Wars saga, and the sixth in terms of the series' internal chronology...
(1983), in which he was depicted by means of a complex animatronic puppet. He served as a minor antagonist throughout the initial series, where he was shown abusing his many cohorts, putting a bounty
Bounty (reward)
A bounty is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money...
on Solo's head, attempting to kill Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the original film trilogy of the Star Wars franchise, where he is portrayed by Mark Hamill. He is introduced in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which he is forced to leave home, and finds himself apprenticed to the Jedi master...
, and enslaving Princess Leia Organa
Princess Leia Organa
Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe...
, who eventually kills him. In the prequel film, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms...
, Jabba features in a cameo at the start of the Boonta Eve Classic pod race. Despite being an auxiliary character, Jabba has as much if not more crossover than any other character with the exception of Natalie Portman's characters, Padme and her decoy.
Jabba's role in Star Wars is primarily antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
ic. He is a 600-year-old Hutt
Hutt (Star Wars)
The Hutts are a fictional alien race in the Star Wars universe. They appear in The Phantom Menace, Return of the Jedi and The Clone Wars, as well as the special edition release of A New Hope. They also appear in various Star Wars games, including those based on the movies, and the Knights of the...
crime lord
Crime boss
A crime boss or boss is a person in charge of a criminal organization. A boss typically has absolute or near-absolute control over his subordinates, is greatly feared by his subordinates for his ruthlessness and willingness to take lives in order to exert his influence, and profits come from the...
and gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
who employs a retinue of criminals, bounty hunter
Bounty hunter
A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent and fugitive recovery agent.-Laws in the U.S.:...
s, smugglers
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
, assassins
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
, and bodyguard
Bodyguard
A bodyguard is a type of security operative or government agent who protects a person—usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure—from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of confidential information, terrorist attack or other threats.Most important public figures such...
s to operate his criminal empire. In his palace on the desert planet Tatooine
Tatooine
Tatooine is a fictional planet and setting for many key scenes in the Star Wars saga, appearing in every Star Wars film except The Empire Strikes Back, although it is mentioned at the end of the movie...
he keeps a host of entertainers at his disposal: slaves
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, droids, and alien creatures. Jabba has a grim sense of humour, an insatiable appetite, and affinities for gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
, slave girls and torture.
The character was incorporated into the Star Wars merchandising campaign that corresponded with the theatrical release of Return of the Jedi. Besides the films, Jabba the Hutt is featured in Star Wars literature
Star Wars Expanded Universe
The Star Wars Expanded Universe encompasses all of the officially licensed, fictional background of the Star Wars universe, outside of the six feature films produced by George Lucas. The expanded universe includes books, comic books, video games, spin-off films like Star Wars: The Clone Wars,...
and is sometimes referenced by his full name, Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Jabba the Hutt's image has since played an influential role in popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
, particularly in the United States. The name is used as a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
literary device and a political caricature to underscore negative qualities such as morbid obesity and corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
.
Appearances
Jabba the Hutt appears in three of the six live-action Star Wars films and The Clone WarsStar Wars: The Clone Wars (film)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 2008 CGI animated science fiction/action film that takes place within the Star Wars saga, leading into the TV series of the same name. The film is set in the same time period as the 2003 Clone Wars television series...
. He has a recurring role in Expanded Universe
Star Wars Expanded Universe
The Star Wars Expanded Universe encompasses all of the officially licensed, fictional background of the Star Wars universe, outside of the six feature films produced by George Lucas. The expanded universe includes books, comic books, video games, spin-off films like Star Wars: The Clone Wars,...
literature and is the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
of the comic book anthology Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal (1998), a collection of comics originally published in 1995 and 1996.
Star Wars films
Jabba is first mentioned in Star WarsStar Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
(1977), but his first appearance on film came in 1983 with the third installment of the original Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. Directed by Richard Marquand
Richard Marquand
Richard Marquand was a Welsh film director best known for directing the 1983 blockbuster Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi.-Early life:...
and written by Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Edward "Larry" Kasdan is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Kasdan was born in Miami, Florida, the son of Sylvia Sarah , an employment counselor, and Clarence Norman Kasdan, who managed retail electronics stores.His Brother is the writer/producer Mark...
and George Lucas, the first act of Return of the Jedi features the attempts of Princess Leia Organa
Princess Leia Organa
Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe...
(Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher
Carrie Frances Fisher is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer. She is most famous for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge, for which she wrote the screenplay to the film of the same name, and her...
), the Wookiee
Wookiee
Wookiees are a species of bipeds in the Star Wars universe. The most notable Wookiee is Chewbacca, a companion to Han Solo.-Inspiration:...
Chewbacca
Chewbacca
Chewbacca, also known as Chewie, is a character in the Star Wars franchise, portrayed by Peter Mayhew. In the series' narrative chronology, he appears in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...
(Peter Mayhew
Peter Mayhew
Peter Mayhew is an English actor known for playing the Wookiee Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies. His peak height was tall.-Career:...
), and Jedi Knight
Jedi
The Jedi are characters in the Star Wars universe and the series's main protagonists. The Jedi use a power called the Force and weapons called lightsabers, which emit a controlled energy flow in the shape of a sword, in order to serve and protect the Republic and the galaxy at large from conflict...
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the original film trilogy of the Star Wars franchise, where he is portrayed by Mark Hamill. He is introduced in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which he is forced to leave home, and finds himself apprenticed to the Jedi master...
(Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
) to rescue their friend, Han Solo
Han Solo
Han Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise played by Harrison Ford. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire...
(Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
), who had been imprisoned in carbonite in the events of the previous film, The Empire Strikes Back.
The captured Han is delivered to Jabba by the bounty hunter Boba Fett
Boba Fett
Boba Fett is a character in Star Wars. A bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader to find the Millennium Falcon, he is a minor villain in both Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi....
(Jeremy Bulloch
Jeremy Bulloch
Jeremy Bulloch is an English actor. He is best known for the role inside the costume of the bounty hunter Boba Fett in the original Star Wars trilogy, though he did not voice the character...
) and placed on display in the crime lord's throne room. Friends of Han, namely, Lando Calrissian
Lando Calrissian
Lando Calrissian is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He is portrayed by Billy Dee Williams in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...
(Billy Dee Williams
Billy Dee Williams
William December "Billy Dee" Williams, Jr. is an American actor, artist, singer, and writer.-Early life:Williams was born in New York City, New York, the son of Loretta...
), droids C-3PO
C-3PO
C-3PO is a robot character from the Star Wars universe who appears in both the original Star Wars films and the prequel trilogy. He is also a major character in the television show Droids, and appears frequently in the series' "Expanded Universe" of novels, comic books, and video games...
(Anthony Daniels
Anthony Daniels
Anthony Daniels is an English actor. He is best known for his role as the droid C-3PO in the Star Wars series of films made between 1977 and 2005.-Early life:...
) and R2-D2
R2-D2
R2-D2 , is a character in the Star Wars universe. An astromech droid, R2-D2 is a major character throughout all six Star Wars films. Along with his droid companion C-3PO, he joins or supports Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in various points in the saga...
(Kenny Baker
Kenny Baker
Kenneth George "Kenny" Baker is a British actor and musician, best known as the man inside R2-D2 in the popular Star Wars film series.- Career :...
), Leia, and Chewbacca infiltrate Jabba's palace as part of a plot to save Han. Leia herself is soon captured and enslaved by the Hutt. Luke arrives to "bargain for Solo's life". Luke, however, is dropped into the pit of the monstrous rancor, just below Jabba's throne room. After Luke slays the beast, Jabba condemns Luke, Han, and Chewbacca to a slow death in the belly of the Sarlacc
Sarlacc
The sarlacc is a fictional creature in George Lucas's science fiction saga Star Wars. It first appeared in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi as a multi-tentacled alien beast whose immense, gaping mouth is lined with several rows of sharp teeth...
, a large alien creature in Tatooine's Dune Sea. The execution turns into a skirmish at the Great Pit of Carkoon
Sarlacc
The sarlacc is a fictional creature in George Lucas's science fiction saga Star Wars. It first appeared in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi as a multi-tentacled alien beast whose immense, gaping mouth is lined with several rows of sharp teeth...
where Luke escapes execution with the help of R2-D2 and defeats Jabba's guards. During the subsequent confusion, Leia strangles Jabba to death with her slave chains. Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2 escape just before Jabba's sail barge explodes, killing all inside.
The second film appearance of Jabba the Hutt is in the Special Edition of A New Hope which was released in 1997 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original Star Wars. Han Solo has a confrontation in a Mos Eisley
Mos Eisley
Mos Eisley is a setting in the fictional Star Wars universe. It is introduced as a spaceport town on the planet Tatooine. In Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi describes Mos Eisley as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy." It is the home of the Mos Eisley Cantina and Figrin D'an...
cantina
Mos Eisley Cantina
The Chalmun's Cantina is a fictional bar of the Star Wars universe located in the "pirate city" of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine...
with the alien bounty hunter Greedo (Paul Blake and Maria De Aragon) that ends with the latter's death. According to Greedo, Jabba "has no use for smugglers who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser." Jabba had hired Han to smuggle the illicit drug spice from the asteroid Kessel. Han, however, was forced to dump his cargo when an Imperial
Galactic Empire (Star Wars)
The Galactic Empire is one of the main factions in the fictional universe of Star Wars. It is a galaxy-spanning regime established by the series' lead villain, Palpatine, to replace the Galactic Republic in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The Galactic Empire is introduced in Star Wars...
search team boarded the Millennium Falcon
Millennium Falcon
The Millennium Falcon is a spacecraft in the Star Wars universe commanded by smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee first mate, Chewbacca...
, Han's ship. Greedo tells Han, "Jabba's put a price
Bounty (reward)
A bounty is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money...
on your head so large, every bounty hunter in the galaxy
Star Wars Galaxy
Star Wars Galaxy may mean:* Star Wars Galaxies, a Star Wars themed MMORPG platform for Microsoft Windows* Star Wars galaxy, the fictional galaxy where the setting of the Star Wars saga occurs...
will be looking for you." In a scene that had been cut from the 1977 original, Jabba and an entourage of bounty hunters are seen in a hangar bay outside the Millennium Falcon, trying to find the smuggler. Jabba confirms Greedo's last words and demands that Han pay the value of the shipment. Han promises to compensate Jabba as soon as he receives payment for delivering "goods"—Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He is one of several primary characters in the Star Wars series. Along with Darth Vader, R2-D2, and C-3PO, he is one of the few major characters to appear in all six Star Wars films...
(Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
), Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and C-3PO—to Alderaan. Jabba warns Han that if he is not paid back soon, he will post a bounty "so big, you won't be able to go near a civilized system." However, Han never completes his deal with the Hutt. This was actually taken from an unfinished scene for the original 1977 version of the film, in which Jabba was played by Declan Mulholland
Declan Mulholland
Thomas Declan Mulholland was a Northern Irish character actor who appeared in dozens of television shows and films....
. In the 1997 Special Edition version of the film, a CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
rendering of Jabba replaces Mulholland, and his voice is redubbed in Huttese.
Jabba the Hutt makes his third film appearance in the 1999 prequel, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms...
. The character's scene is minor
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
and has little to do with the plot of the film. During the Boonta Eve Classic podrace at Mos Espa on Tatooine, in which nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd
Jake Lloyd
Jake Lloyd is a former American actor , who gained worldwide fame when he was chosen by George Lucas to play the young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the first film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and currently resides in Chicago. He reprised this role in five...
) wins his freedom, Jabba the Hutt is featured in his grandstand accompanied by Gardulla the Hutt (a feminine Hutt) and his Twi'lek majordomo Bib Fortuna (Matthew Wood). Although he is the host of the race, Jabba is totally uninterested and even dozes off, missing the race's conclusion.
Jabba makes his fourth and final appearance in Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 2008 CGI animated science fiction/action film that takes place within the Star Wars saga, leading into the TV series of the same name. The film is set in the same time period as the 2003 Clone Wars television series...
. In this 2008 film, Jabba the Hutt's son, Rotta, is captured by Separatists in an attempt to frame the Jedi and the Republic
Galactic Republic (Star Wars)
The Galactic Republic is the name of the interplanetary State used in the fictional Star Wars universe prior to the establishment of the Galactic Empire. The form of this government, created by the Senate, was introduced in the Prequel Trilogy. By the time of the original Star Wars trilogy, it is...
. Anakin Skywalker and his padawan Ahsoka Tano
Ahsoka Tano
Ahsoka "Snips" Tano is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe and is the primary protagonist in the 2008 animated film: Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the following series. When the series began she was depicted as a 14-year-old Togruta female...
save Rotta and return him to Jabba, securing permission for the safe passage of Republic ships through his territory. Other than the movie, Jabba has also appeared in three episodes of the third season of the Clone Wars TV series. He appeared in the episode "Sphere of Influence" where his son Rotta also makes an appearance. Jabba is faced by Chairman Papanoida, who's daughters were kidnapped by one of his bounty hunters, Greedo. Jabba allows a blood sample of Greedo to be taken in order to prove that he is the kidnapper, but Greedo's cowardliness speaks first. In the episode "Evil Plans" Jabba hires the bounty hunter Cad Bane to bring him plans for the Senate building. When Bane returns successful, Jabba not only pays him, but also hires him for another task. He and the Hutt Council send Bane to free his uncle Ziro the Hutt from prison. (rather unexpected since Ziro helped kidnap his son.) Jabba makes one final short appearance in the episode "Hunt for Ziro" in which he is seen laughing with amusement hearing of Ziro's death at the hand of Sy Snootles, and pays her for delivering Ziro's holo-diary.
Star Wars literature
Star Wars Expanded Universe
The Star Wars Expanded Universe encompasses all of the officially licensed, fictional background of the Star Wars universe, outside of the six feature films produced by George Lucas. The expanded universe includes books, comic books, video games, spin-off films like Star Wars: The Clone Wars,...
literature was in Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' adaptations of A New Hope. In Six Against the Galaxy (1977) by Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...
, What Ever Happened to Jabba the Hut? (1979) and In Mortal Combat (1980), both by Archie Goodwin
Archie Goodwin (comics)
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work...
, Jabba the Hutt (originally spelled Hut) appeared as a tall humanoid with a walrus
Walrus
The walrus is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the Odobenidae family and Odobenus genus. It is subdivided into three subspecies: the Atlantic...
-like face, a topknot
Chonmage
The chonmage is a form of Japanese traditional haircut worn by men. It is most commonly associated with the Edo Period and samurai, and in recent times with sumo wrestlers...
, and a bright uniform. The official "Jabba" was not yet established as he had yet to be seen.
While awaiting the sequel to Star Wars, Marvel kept the monthly comic going with their own stories, one of which includes Jabba tracking Han Solo and Chewbacca down to an old hideaway they use for smuggling. However, circumstances force Jabba to lift the bounty on Solo and Chewbacca, thus enabling them to return to Tatooine
Tatooine
Tatooine is a fictional planet and setting for many key scenes in the Star Wars saga, appearing in every Star Wars film except The Empire Strikes Back, although it is mentioned at the end of the movie...
for an adventure with Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the original film trilogy of the Star Wars franchise, where he is portrayed by Mark Hamill. He is introduced in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which he is forced to leave home, and finds himself apprenticed to the Jedi master...
—who has returned to the planet in order to recruit more pilots for the Rebel Alliance. In the course of another adventure, Solo kills the space pirate Crimson Jack and busts up his operation, which Jabba bankrolled. Jabba thus renews the reward for Solo's head and Solo later kills a bounty hunter who tells him why he is hunted once more. He and Chewbacca return to the rebels. (Solo mentions an incident with a "bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell" in the opening scenes of The Empire Strikes Back.)
The Marvel artists based Jabba on a character later named Mosep Binneed, an alien visible only briefly in the Mos Eisley cantina
Mos Eisley Cantina
The Chalmun's Cantina is a fictional bar of the Star Wars universe located in the "pirate city" of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine...
scene of A New Hope. The 1977 mass market paperback novelization
Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker
Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker is the title of a science fiction novel credited to George Lucas, but actually ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster and first published on November 12, 1976 by Ballantine Books....
of Lucas's Star Wars script describes Jabba as a "great mobile tub of muscle and suet
Suet
Suet is raw beef or mutton fat, especially the hard fat found around the loins and kidneys.Suet has a melting point of between 45° and 50°C and congelation between 37° and 40°C....
topped by a shaggy scarred skull", but gives no further detail as to the character's physical appearance or species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
.
Later Expanded Universe novels and comics adopt the character's image as seen in the film. They also elaborate on his background prior to the events of the Star Wars films. For example, Zorba the Hutt's Revenge
Zorba the Hutt's Revenge
Zorba the Hutt's Revenge is the third book of the Jedi Prince series by Paul Davids and Hollace Davids, and was released in July 1992. It is preceded by the novel The Lost City of the Jedi and followed by the novel Mission from Mount Yoda....
(1992), a young adult novel by Paul and Hollace Davids
Paul Davids
Paul Davids is a writer of films and novels, especially about science fiction. Often collaborating with his wife, Hollace, Davids has written and directed the films Starry Night, Roswell a documentary about the Roswell UFO incident and Timothy Leary's Dead...
, reveals that Jabba's father is a powerful crime lord named Zorba the Hutt and that Jabba was born 596 years before the events of A New Hope, making him around 600 years old at the time of his death in Return of the Jedi. Ann C. Crispin
Ann C. Crispin
Ann Carol Crispin is an American science fiction writer, the author of twenty-three published novels. She has been writing since 1983...
's novel The Hutt Gambit
The Hutt Gambit
The Hutt Gambit is the second volume in The Han Solo Trilogy, by Ann C. Crispin. It was first published in 1997.-Nar Shaddaa:One of the central conflicts of the story was the Battle of Nar Shaddaa, which was fought between the Galactic Empire and an alliance of smugglers and mercenaries.In the wake...
(1997) explains how Jabba the Hutt and Han Solo become business associates and portrays the events that lead to a bounty being placed on Han's head. Other Expanded Universe stories—especially the anthology of Dark Horse
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
comics by Jim Woodring
Jim Woodring
Jim Woodring is a Seattle-based cartoonist, comic book author, artist and toy designer. He also produces fine art works in a variety of other media, including painting and charcoal....
titled Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal (1998)—likewise detail Jabba the Hutt's rise to the head of the Desilijic clan, his role in the criminal underworld of the Star Wars universe, and the establishment of his crime syndicate
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
on Tatooine in the Star Wars galaxy
Star Wars Galaxy
Star Wars Galaxy may mean:* Star Wars Galaxies, a Star Wars themed MMORPG platform for Microsoft Windows* Star Wars galaxy, the fictional galaxy where the setting of the Star Wars saga occurs...
's Outer Rim Territories.
Tales From Jabba's Palace
Tales From Jabba's Palace
Tales from Jabba's Palace is an anthology of short stories set in the fictional Star Wars universe. The book was edited by Kevin J. Anderson and was released on December 1, 1995.- Contents :* Introduction...
(1996), a collection of short stories edited by science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin J. Anderson is an American science fiction author with over forty bestsellers. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and with Brian Herbert is the co-author of the Dune prequels...
, pieces together the lives of Jabba the Hutt's various minions in his palace and their relationship to him during the last days of his life. The stories reveal that few of the Hutt's servants are loyal to him and most are in fact plotting to have him assassinated
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
. When Jabba the Hutt is killed in Return of the Jedi, his surviving former courtiers join forces with his rivals on Tatooine and his family on the Hutt homeworld Nal Hutta make claims to his palace, fortune, and criminal empire. Timothy Zahn
Timothy Zahn
Timothy Zahn is a writer of science fiction short stories and novels. His novella Cascade Point won the 1984 Hugo award. He is the author of nine Star Wars Expanded Universe novels, including seven novels featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn: the Thrawn Trilogy, the Hand of Thrawn duology, Outbound...
's novel Heir to the Empire
Heir to the Empire
Heir to the Empire is the first book in a trilogy of novels known as The Thrawn Trilogy, all written by Timothy Zahn.-Description:The book is set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi...
(1991) reveals that a smuggler named Talon Karrde eventually replaces Jabba as the "big fish in the pond", and moves the headquarters of the Hutt's criminal empire off Tatooine.
Characterization
Jabba the Hutt exempliefies lust, greed, and gluttony. The character is known throughout the Star Wars universeFictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
as a "vile gangster" who amuses himself by torturing and humiliating his subjects and enemies. He surrounds himself with scantily-clad slave girls of all species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
, chaining many of them to his dais
Dais
Dais is any raised platform located either in or outside of a room or enclosure, often for dignified occupancy, as at the front of a lecture hall or sanctuary....
. The Star Wars Databank
Star Wars Databank
The Star Wars Databank is the official Star Wars site's reference on characters, locations and technology. Entries are checked when they are posted but may not be kept up to date...
—an official online database of Star Wars information—remarks that residents of his palace are not safe from his desire to dominate and torture. Jabba would send even his most loyal servants and prized possessions to their deaths. For example, in Return of the Jedi, the Twi'lek slave dancer Oola is fed to the rancor monster because she refuses to pander to his whim.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
describes him as "a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat
Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll's depiction of it in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Known for his distinctive mischievous grin, the Cheshire Cat has had a notable impact on popular culture.-Origins:...
", and astrophysicist
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
and science fiction writer Jeanne Cavelos
Jeanne Cavelos
Jeanne Cavelos is an American writer, editor, and astrophysicist. She is the founder of the Odyssey Writing Workshop.- Bibliography:*Babylon 5: The Passing of the Techno-Mages – Casting Shadows...
gives Jabba the "award for most disgusting alien." Science fiction authors Tom and Martha Veitch
Tom Veitch
Tom Veitch is an American writer, best known for his contributions to the Dark Horse Comics line of Star Wars comic books, primarily Dark Empire and Tales of the Jedi. For DC Comics Veitch wrote Animal Man, along with two Elseworlds series featuring Kamandi and an elder Superman...
write that Jabba's body is a "miasmic mass" of flesh that shakes as he laughs. He emits an unmistakable smell: "The Hutt's lardaceous body seemed to periodically release a greasy discharge, sending fresh waves of rotten stench" into the air. His swollen tongue drips with saliva as he feeds on creatures that resemble frogs and maggots. Jabba's appetite is insatiable and he is not discriminatory about his diet. For example, his jester, the Kowakian monkey-lizard Salacious B. Crumb, must make the Hutt crime lord laugh once a day, every day, or Jabba will eat him.
Jabba the Hutt does show rare moments of charity
Altruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
, however. For instance, in one Expanded Universe story, he prevents a Chevin named Ephant Mon from freezing to death on an ice planet by covering him with his bloated layers of fat; the two are eventually rescued, and Ephant Mon becomes totally loyal to the crime lord, making him the only resident of Jabba's palace that the crime lord trusts. Also, in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Jabba seems to have genuine affection for his son Rotta, and is worried by his kidnapping and angered by his supposed death.
Concept and creation
Jabba the Hutt's appearance underwent several changes between different versions of the films. The shift in the concept of Jabba the Hutt from a furry creature to a slug and from a puppet to CGIComputer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
represent two of the more glaring changes to the character in the concept and creation process.
Episode IV: A New Hope
The original script to A New Hope describes Jabba as a "fat, slug-like creature with eyes on extended feelers and a huge ugly mouth", but Lucas stated in an interview that the initial character he had in mind was much furrier and resembled a Wookiee. When filming the scene between Han Solo and Jabba in 1976, Lucas employed Northern IrishNorthern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
actor Declan Mulholland
Declan Mulholland
Thomas Declan Mulholland was a Northern Irish character actor who appeared in dozens of television shows and films....
to play the stand-in
Stand-in
A stand-in for film and television is a person who substitutes for the actor before filming, for technical purposes such as lighting.Stand-ins are helpful in the initial processes of production. Lighting setup can be a slow and tedious process; during this time the actor will often be somewhere else...
and read Jabba the Hutt's lines wearing a shaggy brown suit. Lucas planned to replace Mulholland in post-production with a stop-motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
creature. The scene was meant to connect A New Hope to Return of the Jedi and explain why Han Solo was imprisoned at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Nevertheless, Lucas decided to leave the scene out of the final film on account of budget and time constraints and because he felt that it did not enhance the film's plot. The scene remained in the novelization, comic book, and radio adaptations of the film.
Fictional language
Fictional languages are by far the largest group of artistic languages. Fictional languages are intended to be the languages of a fictional world and are often designed with the intent of giving more depth and an appearance of plausibility to the fictional worlds with which they are associated, and...
created by sound designer Ben Burtt
Ben Burtt
Benjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr. is an American sound designer who has worked on various films including: the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and WALL-E...
. Joseph Letteri, the visual effects supervisor for the Special Edition, explained that the ultimate goal of the revised scene was to make it look as if Jabba the Hutt was actually on the set talking to and acting with Harrison Ford and that the crew had merely photographed it. Letteri stated that the new scene consisted of five shots that took over a year to complete. The scene was polished further for the 2004 release on DVD, improving Jabba's appearance with advancements in CGI techniques, although neither release looks exactly like the original Jabba the Hutt puppet.
At one point of the original scene, Ford walks behind Mulholland. This became a problem when adding the CGI Jabba, since he had a tail that happened to be in the way. Eventually, this problem was solved by having Han stepping on Jabba's tail, causing the Hutt to react with a yelp of pain.
Lucas confesses that some people were upset about the CGI Jabba's appearance, complaining that the character "looked fake". Lucas dismisses this, stating that whether a character is portrayed as a puppet or as CGI, it will always be "fake" since the character is not real. He says he sees no difference between a puppet made of latex and one generated by a computer. The CGI character performed actions that the puppet could not, such as walking. Jabba's film appearance in The Phantom Menace was as a CGI based on the character from A New Hope.
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Ralph McQuarrie
Ralph McQuarrie is a conceptual designer and illustrator who designed Star Wars , the original Battlestar Galactica , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Cocoon, for which he won an Academy Award....
claimed, "In my sketches Jabba was huge, agile, sort of an apelike figure. But then the design went into another direction, and Jabba became more like a worm kind of creature." According to the 1985 documentary From Star Wars to Jedi, Lucas rejected initial designs of the character. One made Jabba appear too human—almost like a Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century...
character—while a second made him look too snail-like. Lucas finally settled on a design that was a hybrid of the two. Return of the Jedi costume designer Nilo Rodis-Jamero commented,
My vision of Jabba was literally Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
when he was older. I saw him as a very refined man. Most of the villains we like are very smart people. But Phil TippettPhil TippettPhil Tippett is a movie director and an award-winning visual effects supervisor and producer, who specializes in creature design and character animation.-Early career:...
kept imagining him as some kind of slug, almost like in Alice in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
. At one time he sculpted a creature that looked like a slug that's smoking. I kept thinking I must be really off, but eventually that's where it led up to."
Production and design
Designed by visual effects artist Phil Tippett, Jabba the Hutt was inspired by the anatomy of several animal species. His body structure and reproductive processes were based on annelid wormsAnnelid
The annelids , formally called Annelida , are a large phylum of segmented worms, with over 17,000 modern species including ragworms, earthworms and leeches...
, hairless animals that have no skeleton
Skeleton
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
and are hermaphroditic
Hermaphrodite
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...
. Jabba's head was modeled after that of a snake, complete with bulbous, slit-pupilled eyes and a mouth that opens wide enough to swallow large prey. His skin was given moist, amphibian
Amphibian
Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...
qualities. Jabba's design would come to represent almost all members of the Hutt species in subsequent Star Wars fiction.
In Return of the Jedi, Jabba is portrayed by a one-ton puppet that took three months and half a million dollars to construct. While filming the movie, the puppet had its own makeup artist. The puppet required three puppeteers to operate, making it one of the largest ever used in a motion picture. Stuart Freeborn
Stuart Freeborn
Stuart Freeborn is a British motion picture make-up artist. He has been referred to as the grandfather of modern make-up design and is perhaps best known for his work on the original Star Wars trilogy...
designed the puppet, while John Coppinger sculpted its latex, clay, and foam pieces. Puppeteers included David Alan Barclay, Toby Philpott, and Mike Edmonds
Mike Edmonds
Mike Edmonds is an English actor with dwarfism, well-known for his role as Little Ron in the children's television show Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.Edmonds can also be seen dancing in the Men Without Hats music video "The Safety Dance"....
, who were members of Jim Henson
Jim Henson
James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...
's Muppet
The Muppets
The Muppets are a group of puppet characters created by Jim Henson starting in 1954–55. Although the term is often used to refer to any puppet that resembles the distinctive style of The Muppet Show, the term is both an informal name and legal trademark owned by the Walt Disney Company in reference...
group. Barclay operated the right arm and mouth and read the character's English dialogue, while Philpott controlled the left arm, head, and tongue. Edmonds, the shortest of the three men (he also played the Ewok
Ewok
Ewoks originate from the Star Wars films. In the series, they are a species of teddy-bear-like hunter-gatherers that inhabit the forest moon of Endor. The Ewoks live in various tree-huts and primitive dwellings. They first appeared in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...
Logray in later scenes) was responsible for the movement of Jabba's tail. Tony Cox, who also played an Ewok, would assist as well. The eyes and facial expressions were operated by radio control
Radio control
Radio control is the use of radio signals to remotely control a device. The term is used frequently to refer to the control of model vehicles from a hand-held radio transmitter...
.
Jabba the Hutt only speaks Huttese on film, but his lines are subtitled
Subtitle (captioning)
Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added...
in English. His voice and Huttese-language dialogue were performed by voice actor
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
Larry Ward
Larry Ward (voice actor)
Larry Ward was an American voice actor who provided voices for characters in three of the six Star Wars films. An electronically synthesized version of his voice was used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as Greedo, a bounty hunter...
, whose work is not listed in the end credits. A heavy, booming quality was given to Ward's voice by pitching
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
it an octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
lower than normal and processing it through a subharmonic
Subharmonic
Subharmonic frequencies are frequencies below the fundamental frequency of an oscillator in a ratio of 1/n, with n a positive integer number. For example, if the fundamental frequency of an oscillator is 440 Hz, sub-harmonics include 220 Hz and 110 Hz...
generator. A soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
of wet, slimy sound effects was recorded to accompany the movement of the puppet's limbs and mouth. The sounds were created by a hand running through a bowl of cheese casserole
Casserole
A casserole, from the French for "saucepan", is a large, deep dish used both in the oven and as a serving vessel. The word casserole is also used for the food cooked and served in such a vessel, with the cookware itself called a casserole dish or casserole pan...
and a muddy towel scraping along the inside of a garbage can.
Jabba the Hutt's musical theme throughout the film, composed by John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
, is played on a tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
. One reviewer of Return of the Jedis soundtrack comments, "Among the new thematic ideas [of the score is] Jabba the Hutt's cute tuba piece (playing along the politically incorrect
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
lines of tubas representing fatness) ...." The theme is very similar to one Williams wrote for a heavyset character in Fitzwilly
Fitzwilly
Fitzwilly is a 1967 film by Delbert Mann, based on Poyntz Tyler's novel, A Garden of Cucumbers, adapted for the screen by Isobel Lennart...
(1967), though the theme does not appear on that film's soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
. Williams later turned the theme into a symphonic
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
piece performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra
Boston Pops Orchestra
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....
featuring a tuba solo by Chester Schmitz. The role of the piece in film and popular culture has become a focus of study by musicologists
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
such as Gerald Sloan, who says Williams' piece "blends the monstrous and the lyrical."
According to film historian Laurent Bouzereau, Jabba the Hutt's death in Return of the Jedi was suggested by script writer Lawrence Kasdan. Lucas decided Leia should strangle him with her slave chain. He was inspired by a scene from The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
(1972) where an obese character named Luca Brasi
Luca Brasi
Luca Brasi is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, as well as its 1972 film adaptation .-In the novel and film:In The Godfather, Luca Brasi is one of Don Vito Corleone's personal enforcers...
(Lenny Montana
Lenny Montana
Lenny Montana was an American actor, who played the role of feared hitman Luca Brasi in The Godfather. Prior to becoming an actor, he had a successful career as a professional wrestler,...
) is garrote
Garrote
A garrote or garrote vil is a handheld weapon, most often referring to a ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line used to strangle someone....
d by an assassin.
Portrayal
Jabba the Hutt was played by Declan MulhollandDeclan Mulholland
Thomas Declan Mulholland was a Northern Irish character actor who appeared in dozens of television shows and films....
in scenes cut from the 1977 release of Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
. In Mulholland's scenes as Jabba, Jabba is represented as a rotund Human dressed in a shaggy fur coat. George Lucas has stated his intention was to use an alien creature for Jabba, but the special effects technology of the time was not up to the task of replacing Mulholland. In 1997, the "Special Edition" re-releases restored and altered the original scene to include a computer generated portrayal of Jabba. In Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. It is the third film released in the Star Wars saga, and the sixth in terms of the series' internal chronology...
, he was played by puppeteers Mike Edmonds
Mike Edmonds
Mike Edmonds is an English actor with dwarfism, well-known for his role as Little Ron in the children's television show Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.Edmonds can also be seen dancing in the Men Without Hats music video "The Safety Dance"....
, Toby Philpott
Toby Philpott
Toby Philpott is an English puppeteer best known for his work in motion picture animatronics during the 1980s in such films as The Dark Crystal and Return of the Jedi...
, David Alan Bartley and voiced by Larry Ward
Larry Ward (voice actor)
Larry Ward was an American voice actor who provided voices for characters in three of the six Star Wars films. An electronically synthesized version of his voice was used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as Greedo, a bounty hunter...
. Jabba is played by an uncredited voice-actor in The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms...
and in the ending credits, Jabba is credited as playing himself. His puppeteers have appeared in the documentaries From 'Star Wars' to 'Jedi': The Making of a Saga and Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi. David Alan Barclay, who was one of the puppeteers for Jabba in the film, played Jabba in the Super Nintendo video game version of Return of the Jedi. In the radio drama adaption
Star Wars (radio)
An expanded radio dramatization of the original Star Wars trilogy was produced in 1981, 1983, and 1996. The first two radio series, based on A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, were produced and broadcast by National Public Radio as part of NPR Playhouse...
of the original trilogy, Jabba is played by Ed Asner
Ed Asner
Edward Asner , commonly known as Ed Asner, is an American film, television, stage, and voice actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, primarily known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Lou Grant on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant...
. In the film Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 2008 CGI animated science fiction/action film that takes place within the Star Wars saga, leading into the TV series of the same name. The film is set in the same time period as the 2003 Clone Wars television series...
, Jabba is portrayed by Kevin Michael Richardson
Kevin Michael Richardson
Kevin Michael Richardson is an American actor and voice actor who currently stars as Cleveland Brown, Jr. in The Cleveland Show...
. All other video game appearances of Jabba were played by Clint Bajakian
Clint Bajakian
Clint Bajakian is an American video game composer and musician.-Biography:Bajakian was born in Massachusetts, United States. He was linked with music since age of 8. In middle school Bajakian played in marching bands, and also played in range of rock bands...
. Jabba was supposed to appear in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a multimedia project developed by LucasArts along with Dark Horse Comics, Lego, Hasbro, and Del Rey Books...
, but was left out due to time restraints. A cutscene was produced featuring a conversation between Jabba and Juno Eclipse (voiced by Natalie Cox), which was scrapped from the game. He appears in the Ultimate Sith Edition.
Cultural influence
With the premiere of Return of Jedi in 1983 and the accompanying merchandising campaign, Jabba the Hutt became an icon in American popular culturePopular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. The character was produced and marketed as a series of action figure play sets by Kenner
Kenner
Kenner Products was a toy company founded in 1947 by three brothers, Albert, Phillip, and Joseph L. Steiner, in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, and was named after the street where the original corporate offices were located, which is just north of Cincinnati's Union Terminal.Kenner introduced its...
/Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...
from 1983 to 2004. In the 1990s, Jabba the Hutt became the protagonist in his own comic book series collectively titled Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal.
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
' Star Wars spoof Spaceballs
Spaceballs
Spaceballs is a 1987 American science fiction comedy parody film co-written by, directed by, Mel Brooks and starring Bill Pullman, John Candy, Mel Brooks & Rick Moranis. It also features, Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, and the voice of Joan Rivers. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on...
(1987), Jabba the Hutt is parodied
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
as the character Pizza the Hutt, a cheesy blob shaped like a slice of pizza whose name is a double pun on Jabba the Hutt and the restaurant franchise Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise that offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread....
. Like Jabba, Pizza the Hutt is a loan shark
Loan shark
A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....
and mobster. The character meets his demise at the end of Spaceballs when he becomes "locked in his car and [eats] himself to death." The Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
's National Air and Space Museum
National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and...
in Washington, D.C., included a display on Jabba the Hutt in the temporary exhibition
Art exhibition
Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...
Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, which closed in 1999. Jabba's display was called "The Hero's Return," referencing Luke Skywalker's journey toward becoming a Jedi.
Mass media
Since the release of Return of the Jedi, the name Jabba the Hutt has become synonymous in American mass mediaMass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
with repulsive obesity and corruption. The name is frequently utilized as a literary device—either as a simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...
or metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
—to illustrate character flaw
Character flaw
In the creation and criticism of fictional works, a character flaw is a limitation, imperfection, problem, phobia, or deficiency present in a character who may be otherwise very functional. The flaw can be a problem that directly affects the character's actions and abilities, such as a violent temper...
s. For example, in Under the Duvet (2001), Marian Keyes
Marian Keyes
Marian Keyes is an Irish Book Awards-winner Irish novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for her work in women's literature. She has sold over more 22 million copies worldwide and been translated into 32 languages...
references a problem with gluttony
Gluttony
Gluttony, derived from the Latin gluttire meaning to gulp down or swallow, means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, intoxicants or wealth items to the point of extravagance or waste...
when she writes, "wheel out the birthday cake, I feel a Jabba the Hutt moment coming on." Likewise, in the novel Steps and Exes: A Novel of Family (2000), Laura Kalpakian
Laura Kalpakian
Laura Anne Kalpakian is an American author. She has also published under the pen names Juliet Fitzgerald and Carenna Jane Greye. She is known for her work in the memoir genre.-Life and career:...
uses Jabba the Hutt to emphasize the weight of a character's father: "The girls used to call Janice's parents Jabba the Hutt and the Wookiee. But then Jabba (Janice's father) died, and it didn't seem right to speak of the dead on those terms." In Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
's first novel Digital Fortress
Digital Fortress
Digital Fortress is a techno-thriller novel written by American author Dan Brown and published in 1998 by St. Martin's Press. The book explores the theme of government surveillance of electronically stored information on the private lives of citizens, and the possible civil liberties and ethical...
, an NSA technician is affectionately nicknamed Jabba the Hutt.
In his book of humor and popular culture The Dharma of Star Wars
The Dharma of Star Wars
The Dharma of Star Wars is a book by Matthew Bortolin. The book is a primer for basic Buddhist philosophy using the fictional characters and events of the Star Wars saga to explicate the Buddha's teachings....
(2005), writer Matthew Bortolin
Matthew Bortolin
Matthew Bortolin is the author of The Dharma of Star Wars, a book that serves as an introduction to Buddhist philosophy using the fictional characters and events of the Star Wars saga to explicate the Buddha's teachings.- External links :* *...
attempts to show similarities between Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
teachings and aspects of Star Wars fiction. Bartolin insists that if a person makes decisions that Jabba the Hutt would make, then that person is not practicing the proper spiritual concept of dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
. Bortolin's book reinforces the idea that Jabba's name is synonymous with negativity:
One way to see if we are practicing right livelihoodNoble Eightfold PathThe Noble Eightfold Path , is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...
is to compare our trade with that of Jabba the Hutt. Jabba has his fat, stubby fingers in many of the pots that led to the dark sideSith-Sith:The Sith is a name applied to certain characters in the Star Wars universe. In the films they are the central antagonists. They are capable of using the dark side of the Force.-The Invention of the Sith:...
. He dealt largely in illegal "spice" trade—an illicit drug in the Star Wars galaxy. He also transacts business in the slave trade. He has many slaves himself, and some he fed to the Rancor, a creature he kept caged and tormented in his dungeon. Jabba uses deception and violence to maintain his position.
Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr is an American actress, comedian, writer, television producer and director. Barr began her career in stand-up comedy at clubs before gaining fame for her role in the sitcom Roseanne. The show was a hit and lasted nine seasons, from 1988 to 1997...
endured what W. C. Goodman called "vitriolic attacks based on her weight" at the hands of The New York Observer columnist Michael Thomas who often compared her with "Star Wars blob monster" Jabba the Hutt. In "Starvin' Marvin in Space
Starvin' Marvin in Space
"Starvin' Marvin in Space" is episode 42 of Comedy Central's animated series South Park. It originally aired on November 17, 1999. Like the episode "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics", the episode is dedicated to Mary Kay Bergman, who lent her voice to nearly all of South Park's female characters...
", a 1999 episode of the animated television series South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, Christian Children's Fund
Christian Children's Fund
ChildFund, formerly known as Christian Children's Fund and China's Children Fund, is an international child sponsorship group based in Richmond, Virginia, United States...
spokeswoman Sally Struthers
Sally Struthers
Sally Ann Struthers is an American actress and spokeswoman, best-known for her roles as Gloria Stivic on All in the Family, for which she won two Emmy awards, and as Babette on Gilmore Girls.-Personal life:...
is portrayed as the Hutt and accused of gorging herself on food relief meant for starving Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
ns. Another reference appears in the Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
episode "He's Too Sexy for His Fat" when Peter
Peter Griffin
Peter Griffin is a fictional character and the protagonist of the animated comedy series Family Guy and the patriarch of the Griffin family. He is voiced by cartoonist Seth MacFarlane and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the family in the 15-minute short on December 20, 1998....
mentions his husky ancestor Jabba the Griffin.
In another sense of the term, Jabba the Hutt has come to represent greed and anarchy
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, especially in the business world. For instance, Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...
biographer Mitchell Krugel uses the term to disparage Chicago Bulls
Chicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago, Illinois, playing in the Central Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was founded in 1966. They play their home games at the United Center...
's general manager Jerry Krause
Jerry Krause
Jerry Krause is a former professional basketball scout and general manager for, among other franchises, the Baltimore Bullets and, most notably, the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. He is a two-time recipient of the NBA's Executive of the Year award.-Early career:Krause was...
after Krause made a comment about Jordan and other players' multi-million dollar contracts: "Krause added to his Jabba the Hutt image during the media gathering that preceded the opening of camp when he answered a question about the prospect of rebuilding the Bulls without Phil
Phil Jackson
Philip Douglas "Phil" Jackson is a retired American professional basketball coach and player. Jackson is widely considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of the National Basketball Association . His reputation was established as head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 1989 through 1998;...
or Michael in the imminent future by saying, 'Organizations win championships. Players and coaches are parts of organizations'." Jabba the Hutt ranked #5 on the Forbes Fictional 15
Forbes Fictional 15
The Forbes Fictional 15 is a list generated by Forbes magazine that lists the 15 richest people in the realm of fiction. The members are characters from movies, books, cartoons, television, video games, and comics....
list of wealthiest fictional characters in 2008.
Jabba the Hutt has likewise become a popular means of caricature in American politics
American politics
American politics is an area of study within the academic discipline of political science. It is primarily, but not exclusively, studied by researchers in the United States...
. For example, opponents of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
legislator Jackie Goldberg
Jackie Goldberg
Jackie Goldberg is an American politician and teacher, and a member of the Democratic Party. She is a former member of the California State Assembly....
commonly depict the politician as the Star Wars character. The Los Angeles Daily News
Los Angeles Daily News
The Los Angeles Daily News is the second-largest circulating daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a branch of Colorado-based MediaNews Group....
has caricatured her in cartoons as a grotesquely overweight Jabba the Hutt-like figure and the New Times LA
New Times LA
New Times LA is a now-defunct alternative weekly newspaper that was published in Los Angeles, California by the New Times Media corporation from 1996 until 2002. The editor-in-chief for its entire run was Rick Barrs...
referred to Goldberg as "a human Jabba the Hutt who consumes the good while producing the bad." William G. Ouchi
William Ouchi
William G. Ouchi is an American professor and author in the field of business management.Bill Ouchi was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He earned a B.A. from Williams College , an MBA from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Chicago...
uses the term to describe what he sees as the inefficient bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
of the public school system: "With all of these unnecessary layers of organizational fat, school districts have come to resemble Jabba the Hutt—the pirate leader in Star Wars."
Further reading
- Mangels, Andy. The Essential Guide to Characters. New York: Del Rey, 1995. ISBN 0-345-39535-2.
- Reynolds, David West. Star Wars Episode I: The Visual Dictionary. New York: DK Publishing, 1999. ISBN 0-7894-4701-0.
- Wallace, Daniel and Kay How. The New Essential Guide to Characters. New York: Del Rey, 2002. ISBN 0-345-44900-2.
- Wallace, Daniel, and Kevin J. Anderson. The New Essential Chronology. New York: Del Rey, 2005. ISBN 0-345-49053-3.
- Wixted, Martin. Star Wars Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley. Honesdale, Penn.: West End Games, 1993. ISBN 0-87431-187-X.