Jabba Desilijic Tiure/Legends

"If I told you half the things I've heard about this Jabba the Hutt, you'd probably short-circuit."

- C-3PO

Jabba Desilijic Tiure, or simply Jabba the Hutt, (596 BBY–4 ABY) was a Hutt crime lord, who ran a large criminal empire in the Outer Rim Territories from his palace on Tatooine.

A gangster in the making
Born on Nal Hutta, Jabba was the child of Zorba. He took control of the Desilijic kajidic when he killed the former leader, Jiliac's offspring as the old Hutt was dying. The up-and-coming gangster established his criminal empire in the out-of-the-way Tatoo system on its lone desert world, Tatooine. There he built his palace around an old B'omarr Monastery, and safely nestled in the planet's comfortable obscurity.



Jabba started small, finding early work as a high-risk gun runner with his lifelong friend Ephant Mon. During Senator Palpatine's rise to supreme office, it appears that Jabba was one of several gangsters who made possible his a bid for power. Competitors included Sise Fromm, the then-kingpin of organized crime in the galaxy, and Prince Xizor, fledgling heir to the Black Sun criminal empire. Though neither Xizor nor Jabba were by any means young, both had just been handed the reigns of power established by their respective criminal families. While Fromm played war games, Xizor and Jabba sensed the winds of change and spent their resources garnering favor with those who seemed to be shifting into power.

Jabba even went so far as to launch his own campaign against the Jedi Order during the purge. In this way, Xizor and Jabba built powerful criminal empires parallel with and in symbiosis to Palpatine's New Order. In the wake of the Clone Wars, circa 15 BBY, the galaxy's seats of power were still realigning. The Fromm family had begun to invest heavily in a covert project to build a powerful weapons satellite dubbed The Trigon 1. Using its orbital laser and an army of clones created though Imperial granted Spaarti cloning cylinders, Fromm was still making ambitious power grabs in his home system of Annoo. However, when both the Trigon and his palace were destroyed and his plans foiled, Jabba made a political move that established him as the "The Number One Gangster In The Galaxy." The quick-witted Hutt struck while the iron was hot and placed a bounty on the heads of the entire Fromm organization, aiming to crush them while they were still reeling from their losses. Through a series of bad turns with the bounty hunter Boba Fett, the elderly Annoo-dat gangster was captured and executed along with his son and chief officer of security.



Underworld overlord
By the dawn of the Rebellion Era, Jabba had become the most powerful crime lord in the Outer Rim, perhaps even the galaxy, largely due to his near monopoly of glitterstim spice business. By this time, the Desilijic kajidic had become the largest and most powerful among all the Hutt dynasties, trumping even their sworn enemies, the Besadii Hutts, who Jabba used every opportunity to destroy the business of.

Even at the height of his reign, the crimelord dealt with recurring issues. Chronic illness caused him constant discomfort, and to loose his hair. Even his closest lieutenants had begun plotting his demise. The Hutt put his trust in no one other than his Nimbanese accountant Mosep Binneed and Ephant Mon, whom he made Chief of Security at his palace. It was at this time that the Hutt suffered a major financial loss when Han Solo, his best smuggler, dropped an entire cargo of valuable glitterstim while on a dangerous mission near Kessel. The smuggler was forced to dump the spice when he was boarded by an Imperial starship. Jabba demanded that Han pay him the value of the cargo. When the smuggler failed to reimburse his longtime employer, the Hutt put a bounty on Han's head. Greedo the Younger attempted to collect the bounty, but was killed by Solo.

Following the death of Greedo, Jabba confronted Han the Millennium Falcon's hangar bay, where he agreed to let Han go, in exchange for a premium of 15%, with a warning that if Han delayed payment again, he would have a price on his head so high that Han would not be able to go near a civilized star system. Though Binneed would pursue the acquisition of Han's debt personally at least two more times, he was ultimately forced to place a bounty on Solo's head, which was eventually collected by Boba Fett, whom Binneed had hired personally.

Beauty and the beast
The delivery of Solo to Jabba's Palace greatly pleased the Hutt, but his time was running out. A failed attempt by Leia Organa and Chewbacca to rescue Solo, resulted in imprisonment of the Wookiee and enslavement of the Princess. The arrival of Luke Skywalker led to the destruction of the Hutt's sail barge and the death of Jabba at the hands of Princess Leia.

The death of Jabba cancelled the debts of many individuals and as such, Luke was held with considerable favor for removing that dangerous complication in their lives. In response, Zorba placed a bounty on Leia, which the Desilijic kajidic later extended to Han, Chewie, and Luke. The bounty was not formally rescinded until Leia's election as Chief of State, as the Hutts did not wish to further antagonize the New Republic.

Years after Jabba's death, many Hutts wished that he lived. If he had continued living, they theorized, the Hutts would have avoided the Darksaber project and their disastrous deal with the Yuuzhan Vong.

[[Media:jabba.ogg|Hear Jabba Desilijic Tiure]]

Behind the scenes
Jabba the Hutt looks suspiciously close to Arabic jabhat al ħūţ = "the forehead of the fish", which is a suitable name for the star β Piscis Australis when considered in terms of the old pictorial constellations.

A New Hope
During the shooting of A New Hope, George Lucas filmed a scene in which Jabba confronted Han Solo in Docking Bay 94 following the death of Greedo. The scene was filmed using the actor Declan Mulholland playing a stocky human in a shaggy coat. Mullholland was intended to be only a temporary stand-in that would be replaced by a stop-motion creature in post-production, but this process was unsuccessful due to the limitations in visual effects at the time. The scene was left on the cutting room floor for the 1977 theatrical release of the film. Despite being deleted from the film, the scene appeared in three early Expanded Universe adaptations: Marvel Star Wars 2: Six Against the Galaxy, the film novelization, and the radio drama. These three sources were produced using the original film script, which used the spelling "Jabba the Hut", and went to press prior to the decision to cut the scene. The radio drama replaced Jabba with a character named "Heater" and the comic adaptation presented Jabba as a species later identifed as the Nimbanel. Jabba's appearance as a Nimbanel was later retconned into Mosep Binneed, Jabba's accountant.

For the Special Edition release of A New Hope, Lucas challenged his special effects team to resurrect the deleted scene with a CGI Jabba. The original scene had been staged for two ordinary-sized humanoid characters, and Harrison Ford had walked around the other actor without allowance for the bulk and large tail that the later version of Jabba would have. Lucas and his effects team dealt with this by manipulating the image so that Solo appears to walk over Jabba's tail and Jabba yelps in pained surprise. Further, Jabba was made significantly leaner than the version shown in Return of the Jedi. In addition, as Solo walks towards his ship, he utters that Jabba is a "wonderful human being." Lucas considered attempting to replace the line, but the cost of bringing in Ford for ADR work prompted him to leave it in. Fans read the line as typical Solo wit, since Jabba is neither wonderful nor a human being.

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

Return of the Jedi
For his appearance in Return of the Jedi, Jabba was realized using advanced puppetry. Based on the creature design of Phil Tippet, the animatronic puppet was designed by Stuart Freeborn and sculpted by John Coppinger, who also helped build the puppet alongside Bob Bromley, Mike Osborn, Bob Keen, Richard Padbury, Jez Harris and David Barclay.

When the cameras were rolling, Jabba required four operators. Barclay controlled his right arm, jaw and voice (which was later replaced by Larry Ward's dubbing), Toby Philpott controlled his left arm, head movements and tongue, Mike Edmonds controlled his tail and Coppinger remotely controlled his eyes. With three operators inside the puppet, filming was a difficult, warm and arduous process.

Ed Asner voiced the role in the Return of the Jedi radio drama.

The Phantom Menace
Jabba made a minor appearance in The Phantom Menace using a similar CGI model seen in the A New Hope Special Edition. In the film's credits, Jabba the Hutt is credited as playing "himself".

Appearances

 * Podracing Tales
 * Star Wars: Bounty Hunter
 * Star Wars Republic: Outlander
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
 * Star Wars Battlefront II
 * Star Wars: Droids
 * The Paradise Snare
 * The Hutt Gambit
 * Rebel Dawn
 * Underworld: The Yavin Vassilika
 * Skippy the Jedi Droid
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Special Edition)
 * Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * The Jabba Tape
 * Tales from Jabba's Palace
 * Jabba the Hutt: The Art of the Deal
 * Zorba the Hutt's Revenge
 * Return of the Ewok

External link

 * "Making of..." covering Jabba's puppet
 * Images of the puppet in progress