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- «There will be no bargain, young Jedi. I shall enjoy watching you die.»
- ―Jabba the Hutt to Luke Skywalker
The Rescue of Han Solo, also known as the Battle of the Great Pit of Carkoon, the Battle of Carkoon, the Sail barge disaster, or simply the Fall of Jabba, was a mission carried out during the Imperial Era in the year 4 ABY by members of the Alliance to Restore the Republic to rescue Han Solo, who was frozen in carbonite, from Jabba the Hutt. Solo's friends in the Rebel Alliance set out to find and rescue the former smuggler from Jabba's Palace on Tatooine. Solo was freed by his friends, but the crime lord ordered that they be executed. This led to a battle at the Great Pit of Carkoon between the small group of Rebels and Jabba's forces. One of the rebels, Princess Leia Organa, killed Jabba, while Luke Skywalker and the others fought off Jabba's guards. With Jabba dead, the rebels escaped and returned to the Rebel fleet.
Prelude[]
- "If I told you half the things I've heard about this Jabba the Hutt, you'd probably short circuit!"
- ―C-3PO to R2-D2
Han Solo frozen in carbonite
After Darth Vader set a trap for Luke Skywalker on Bespin, Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and given to the bounty hunter Boba Fett, so he could collect the bounty Jabba the Hutt had placed on Solo.[10]
Following the Galactic Empire's takeover of Cloud City, Lando Calrissian offered to Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker to go alongside Chewbacca to Tatooine to see if Fett had already handed the frozen Solo to Jabba, Lando expressed his hopes that he hadn't: otherwise, it would make a rescue mission impossible, let alone getting him alive out of Jabba's Palace.[11]
However, they found that Solo had yet to be delivered to Jabba;[11] Fett had delayed his journey in order to take part in the hunt for his old enemy Nakano Lash,[12] becoming embroiled in the conflict surrounding her.[13] Later, Fett stopped on the moon of Nar Shaddaa in order to make sure Solo would survive his time in carbonite, but he lost Solo while he was away from Doc Ragon's building, kicking off a war between bounty hunters.[14] Ultimately, Fett regained Solo during the Attack on the Executor and delivered him to Jabba.[15]
Solo's friends were contacted by Beilert Valance, who wanted to help in saving Solo. Valance attacked Jabba's Palace to trick Jabba into unleashing his Megadroid, which would have made Skywalker and company's plan much harder. While Jabba initially assumed Valance was there to save Solo, whose frozen form he saw during the attack, Fett convinced Jabba to let Valance fight the Megadroid, secretly helping Valance's effort. If the Megadroid were to be activated and deployed, Fett suspected he would lose his station amongst Jabba's enforcers. In a Death Match on Tatooine, the Megadroid was destroyed by Valance thanks to the intervention of the rest of T'onga's crew.[16]
While the Rebellion was planning the rescue of Solo, Organa enlisted the help of Maz Kanata. During their meeting on Ord Mantell, the fugitive Organa was confronted by the Ubese bounty hunter Boushh and defeated him. At Kanata's suggestion, Organa stole Boushh's armor.[17] Not long after this failure, Boushh was killed by Black Sun after attempting to blackmail its members.[18] While rumors arose that Lord Gyuti had ordered Boushh's death,[19] word that the Ubese was killed and his armor stolen was seldom known when Organa began to impersonate him.[9]
Calrissian infiltrated the palace under the alias of "Tamtel Skreej" and acquired position as a guard, and Skywalker traveled to Tatooine, possessing a new lightsaber.[4]
The rescue[]
Infiltrating Jabba's palace[]
Arrival of the droids[]
- "I don't think they're going to let us in, Artoo. We'd better go."
- ―C-3PO to R2-D2, before entering the palace
C-3PO talks to Jabba's gatekeeper droid.
In preparation for his arrival, Skywalker sent the protocol droid C-3PO and the astromech droid R2-D2 (inside whom he had hidden his lightsaber) to Jabba's palace, under the pretense of negotiating for Solo. After being greeted and interrogated by a TT-8L/Y7 gatekeeper droid, they were stopped by Gamorrean guards, led by Bib Fortuna. Upon telling Fortuna that they would only give the message to Jabba himself, they were brought before the crime lord. R2 played a message from Skywalker, who offered the droids as gifts in an attempt to gain an audience with Jabba, much to 3PO's surprise. The Hutt, however, refused the offer, but still chose to keep the droids.
Taken down to the droid "assessment" room,[20] R2-D2 and C-3PO were brought before EV-9D9 to be assigned jobs within the palace. 3PO became the Hutt's new translator—to replace 80-M, who was being torn apart as they spoke—while R2 was assigned to be a server aboard the Khetanna.[4]
Entering Jabba's palace[]
- "I am taking Captain Solo and his friends. You can either profit by this or be destroyed. It's your choice, but I warn you not to underestimate my powers."
- ―Luke Skywalker, to Jabba Desilijic Tiure
Disguised as Boushh, Leia Organa entered the palace with Chewbacca
Disguised in Boushh's armor, Leia Organa traveled to the Hutt's palace, bringing with her Chewbacca, under the pretense of negotiating for the bounty on the Wookiee's head. After a small altercation with Doallyn on the stairs to Jabba's throne room, C-3PO had his first assignment under Jabba, translating "Boushh" as "he" negotiated in Ubese. "Boushh" engaged in aggressive negotiations, threatening Jabba with a thermal detonator to ensure that he accepted "his" deal of 50,000 credits; while Jabba's entourage were alarmed by the explosive threat, Jabba himself was impressed by "Boushh"'s tactics and the two settled on a payment of 35,000. The deal made, Chewbacca resisted the Gamorrean guards as they took to the dungeons.[4]
Later that night, when most of the court seemed to be asleep, Organa snuck into Jabba's main audience chamber to his trophy wall and freed Solo from his carbonite imprisonment. When Han awoke, Leia, still disguised as Boushh, said that he had hibernation sickness, and that his eyesight would return in time. When Han asked who had come to rescue him, Leia revealed that she was "someone who loves him," and they kissed. However, just as the two were about to escape from the palace, they heard, to their horror, the distinct sound of Jabba laughing. A curtain to Jabba's dias was drawn back, revealing Jabba and several members of his court, having anticipated Organa's attempt to free Solo. The smuggler attempted to negotiate with the crime lord, offering to pay triple what he owed, but Jabba refused, fed up with Solo's delays. He ordered the captain to be taken to his prison, where he was reunited with Chewbacca.[4]
After Jabba enslaved Leia, Luke arrived to negotiate with the Hutt
Meanwhile, Jabba had different plans for Organa and ordered his guards to bring her to him. Organa warned the Hutt that he would regret capturing the rebels, but Jabba was unfazed. Much to Organa's disgust, Jabba licked her face.[4] Having decided to enslave Organa, Jabba commanded his servants Jess and Damaris to take her to the women's quarters to be cleaned and dressed in a dancing-girl costume. Organa was then chained to Jabba's throne and forced to sit at his side at all times. As the night wore on, Organa kicked and shoved at Jabba whenever he tried to draw her closer, but they eventually grew tired and fell asleep along with the rest of his court.[21]
The next morning, Skywalker ventured to the palace himself.[22] After bypassing resistance through mind tricks—convincing the Gamorrean guards he was Force-choking them,[23] and Fortuna that Jabba had arranged to speak with him—the Jedi found himself escorted by the weak-minked majordomo to Jabba's audience chamber. Once Fortuna awoke Jabba to his outrage, Skywalker attempted to coerce the crime lord into releasing his friends with a mind trick, only to discover that Hutts were immune to such manipulations. His initial plan having failed, Skywalker telekinetically grabbed a DL-18 blaster pistol from a nearby guard, Nizuc Bek, with the intention of making Jabba cooperate by force. However, before C-3PO could alert his previous master, Jabba activated a trapdoor that dropped Skywalker into the rancor pit, the Gamorrean guard Jubnuk falling down with him.[4]
The rancor pit[]
- «Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage.»
- ―Jabba Desilijic Tiure, responding to Pateesa's unexpected death
The ferocious rancor Pateesa was unleashed against Luke Skywalker.
The two tumbled into the pit, and a gate on the far side of the pit lifted. As Pateesa emerged, Skywalker and Jubnuk tried to escape from the barred windows of the pit, but the effort was futile; the beast ate the Gamorrean in two swift bites. The rancor then turned his attention to Skywalker, who, though unable to avoid the creature's grip, managed to grab a bone from the floor. As the rancor lifted Skywalker to his jaws, the young Jedi lodged the bone in Pateesa's mouth, distracting him long enough to drop Skywalker. He temporarily hid in a nook in the wall before running under the rancor to the gate he had come from, but that end of the pit did not entail an exit either.[4]
With Pateesa approaching quickly, Skywalker noticed a switch on his side of the gate. As the rancor passed under the gate, the Jedi picked up a skull—belonging to Bidlo Kwerve, ironically one of Pateesa's first victims[20]—and threw it at the control, causing the gate to close on the creature's neck, killing it immediately to the cartel's astonishment and anger. Shocked, the beastmaster Malakili entered the pit accompanied by Giran and Fozec. While Fozec and "Tamtel Skreej" captured Skywalker, Malakili confirmed Pateesa's death, and wept with Giran. Enraged, Jabba had Solo and Chewbacca brought to him, and sentenced them, along with Skywalker, to be cast into the Great Pit of Carkoon.[4]
Carkoon[]
- "Threepio, you tell that slimy piece of worm-ridden filth he'll get no such pleasure from us! Right?"
"Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us or die." - ―Han Solo and Luke Skywalker to Jabba at the Great Pit of Carkoon
Luke Skywalker is pushed towards the pit by Pagetti Rook, armed with a vibro-ax.
The prisoners were taken to the pit on a Bantha-II cargo skiff, with another skiff for security. Still disoriented from the carbonite, Skywalker assured Solo to stay with Chewbacca and Calrissian for protection, as he would handle the situation, although Solo doubted his claim.[4] To start his escape, Skywalker used another mind trick to get one of the guards to remove his handcuffs.[22]
As Organa had been spared from execution, Jabba brought her and several of his guests along to watch from his luxury barge, the Khetanna. C-3PO bumped into R2-D2, briefly reuniting before the astromech snuck to the top deck as the protocol droid had to relay over microphone Jabba's words to his prisoners. Sneering that he hoped they would die honorably, Jabba also offered a chance for them to beg for mercy, earning a defiant rebuke from Solo. On the plank of the skiff, Skywalker warned Jabba that it was his last chance to avoid death, a threat the crime lord brushed off and ordered Pagetti Rook to push him in. Saluting to R2-D2, the young Jedi jumped off the plank, catching hold of the plank as he fell and springboarding himself back onto the skiff with a flip. As he flew through the air and landed, R2 launched his master's lightsaber into his master's waiting hand. Skywalker promptly activated the weapon and began holding his position on the skiff. Kithaba and Velken Tezeri fell over the skiff's railing while trying to avoid the lightsaber blade; the latter becoming the first fatality of the battle when he tumbled directly into the pit, followed soon after by Rook and Rintel Aren.[4]
Calrissian also helped incapacitate some of the guards, and was in a struggle with the Kajain'sa'Nikto pilot Vedain when,[24] from aboard the Khetanna, the weapons master Vizam mounted a Gi/9 antipersonnel laser cannon and began to open fire on the rogue skiff.[25] One of the shots spilled Calrissian and Vedain overboard; the human managed to grab a rope while the Nikto lost his hold and fell in. [4]
Further complicating matters, Fett rocketed to the commandeered skiff and promptly engaged Skywalker. The Jedi quickly cut the bounty hunter's EE-3 carbine rifle in half as it was aimed at him, only for Fett to launch a whipcord at Skywalker; however, he quickly cut the cord, and in the same swipe deflected another blast from the sail barge, temporarily disabling Fett.[4]
The battle over the sarlacc unfolds
As the other skiff swung around, the young Jedi leapt over to it and began disabling the guards onboard—Barada, Brock Starsher, Lathe, Yotts Oren, and their pilot Pote Snitkin[26]—oblivious to Fett rising and aiming his Dur-24 wrist laser at Skywalker. Solo, who had grabbed Rook's abandoned BD-1 Cutter vibro-ax to help Calrissian, was alerted to Fett standing behind him by a wounded Chewbacca, and blindly swung the ax around, causing Fett's Z-6 jetpack to misfire and sending him into the side of the Khetanna, tumbling off and into the sarlacc pit.[4]
Meanwhile, onboard the Khetanna, Organa took advantage of the chaos, using the microphone to smash Jabba's room controls, causing the windows on the barge to shut. In the dark, she proceeded to choke Jabba with her chain, an act that took all of her strength and forced her to unconsciously draw upon the dark side of the Force for help.[6] Solo, in the meantime, had lowered the ax over the deck of the skiff to help Calrissian, only for another shot from the sail barge to cripple the skiff, sending Calrissian further out of reach. Solo, now with Chewbacca holding his feet, continued to reach out to Calrissian, but the sarlacc had wrapped one of its tentacles around his feet, and began dragging him towards its maw.[4]
Skywalker, noticing the heavy fire the skiff was taking from Vizam aboard the Khetanna, had jumped over to it and fought his way to the upper deck, killing or disabling Vizam, Wooof, Nysad, and other guards. Meanwhile, with the sarlacc having finally claimed Kithaba, it was now only pulling at Calrissian's feet. Solo, after being handed Tezeri's DL-18 blaster by Chewbacca, and having gained just enough sight to aim properly, shot the tentacle, which relinquished its grip on Calrissian and allowed him to grab Han's ax and be pulled back onto the skiff's deck.[4]
Leia Organa strangles Jabba.
R2-D2, meanwhile, used his arc welder to break Organa's chains after she had strangled her erstwhile captor, and noticing Salacious B. Crumb was ripping out C-3PO's right photoreceptor, shocked the monkey-lizard, freeing his companion. Organa, R2, and 3PO worked their way to the upper deck, where Organa hijacked the barge's Me/7 double laser cannon and aimed it at the deck while Skywalker finished off Klaatu and the remaining guards, Taym Dren-garen managing to get a shot on his mechanical hand in the process.[27] The droids then tossed themselves overboard, getting half-buried head-first in the sand, while Skywalker and Organa swung to the first skiff on a bolt rope after activating the cannon. The group of rebels picked up the droids using magnetic clamps on the skiff, and sped off as the Khetanna exploded.[4]
Aftermath[]
Power vacuum on Tatooine[]
- "Jabba ruled with fear. I intend to rule with respect."
- ―Boba Fett
With Solo rescued, the Rebels—with the exception of Skywalker, who journeyed to Dagobah to reunite with Yoda—returned to the Alliance fleet.[4] Calrissian then took part in the Battle of Taanab,[2] which earned him a promotion to general. Afterward, they joined a briefing about the looming Battle of Endor.[4]
Fett seized control of Jabba's Palace, where he established himself as the new crime lord on Tatooine.
Jabba's death heralded the disappearance of anything that resembled law on Tatooine, and in order to determine the exact nature of his death and settle the debate over the matter of his will, the Hutt Clan had the wreckage of the Khetanna examined. What they found was only a holorecording of Organa choking Jabba in his last moments. Most of the circulated copies of this footage and their vendors were hunted down by the Hutt Clan to prevent proof of their own vulnerability from circulating. His courtiers who had stayed at his palace thought a new Hutt would come to take his place, but when one failed to appear, they eventually wandered off, with the beastmaster Malakili being one of the last to leave.[6]
Despite the overwhelming casualties suffered aboard the Khetanna, there were some survivors, such as Fortuna,[29][30] J'Quille,[18] Tessek,[26] and the Max Rebo Band members Maximilian Rebo and Sy Snootles. The group would soon disband following the incident.[18] In Fortuna's case, he would return to and usurp control of Jabba's palace.[7]
For the better part of a year after the rescue, Jabba's rivals in the Red Key Raiders took the blame for Jabba's death.[31] Jabba's death left enormous power vacuums in the Kessel spice trade, leaving trade routes once guarded by Hutt-hired mercenaries vulnerable.[32] Fett was believed to be dead, but was able to escape the sarlacc.[33] However, he lost his armor to Jawas and got captured by a tribe of Tusken Raiders.[28] Law would eventually return in the form of Cobb Vanth, a sheriff who found Fett's Mandalorian armor in a Jawa sandcrawler,[34] and used it to bring law to the lawless world in Mos Pelgo.[35]
Boba Fett along with Fennec Shand stormed the palace, where Fortuna, greeted Fett, expressing his surprise to see the former bounty hunter despite the rumors of his demise. His only response was to shoot the Twi'lek crime lord and took his place on the throne with Shand by his side.[7] He assumed the reins of Jabba's old empire as the new Daimyo on Tatooine and endeavored to consolidate it under his leadership as the new crime lord and abstained from coersion and displaying material wealth, preferring to rule through respect instead of fear or privilege.[28] Meanwhile, Jabba's fellow Hutt crime lord Gardulla Besadii the Elder would learn of the role Force-sensitives played in Jabba's downfall and sought to defend herself against a similar fate, resulting in her hiring a Force-sensitive bodyguard.[36]
Legacy[]
- "I wouldn't have believed anyone could escape a Hutt's chains with her life, much less take the Hutt's life instead."
"I wouldn't have, either, until we did it." - ―Ransolm Casterfo and Leia Organa
Many of the Hutt's slaves were also freed due to Jabba's death, leading one of the species most prominently enslaved by the Hutts, the Niktos, to admire Organa for her slaying of the crime lord, giving her the name "Huttslayer."[6]
Over the years following Jabba's death, a Huttese song known as "Jabba Flow," composed by the Shag Kava band, was named after Jabba,[37] as was a non-alcoholic beverage known as "Jabba Juice."[38]
Behind the scenes[]
The Rescue of Han Solo first appeared in the beginning of the 1983 film Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, the final installment of the Star Wars original trilogy.[4] Though popularly assumed that George Lucas thought up the opening, it was, in reality, the idea of director Richard Marquand and script writer Lawrence Kasdan. The fact was eventually revealed via transcripts of meetings from The Making of Return of the Jedi.[39]
In the rough draft of Return of the Jedi, the sequence was relatively different. Some characters, such as Boba Fett, weren't included. In this version, all guards on the skiff which Luke and Han were transported were knocked into the sarlacc pit after a fistfight against the Rebels only for Jabba to order his Captain of the Guard to shoot them without caring for their own men. The Khetanna exploded like in the finished version, Jabba and his court, including Bib Fortuna, survived the explosion only to be all knocked into the pit and devoured by the sarlacc.[40]
Lawrence Kasdan came up with the suggestion of killing Jabba during the rescue, while Lucas had the idea of having Leia Organa strangling him with her chain as an homage of Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 classic film The Godfather, mirroring the scene in which Luca Brasi gets garrotted to death by Virgil Sollozzo and his men.[40]
Appearances[]
Non-canon appearances[]
- Star Wars Epic Yarns: Return of the Jedi
LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales — "Gambit on Geonosis" (In flashback(s))- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Sources[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ultimate Star Wars
- ↑
The Book of Boba Fett — "Chapter 2: The Tribes of Tatooine"
- ↑ 4.000 4.001 4.002 4.003 4.004 4.005 4.006 4.007 4.008 4.009 4.010 4.011 4.012 4.013 4.014 4.015 4.016 4.017 4.018 4.019 4.020 4.021 4.022 4.023 4.024 4.025 4.026 4.027 4.028 4.029 4.030 4.031 4.032 4.033 4.034 4.035 4.036 4.037 4.038 4.039 4.040 4.041 4.042 4.043 4.044 4.045 4.046 4.047 4.048 4.049 4.050 4.051 4.052 4.053 4.054 4.055 4.056 4.057 4.058 4.059 4.060 4.061 4.062 4.063 4.064 4.065 4.066 4.067 4.068 4.069 4.070 4.071 4.072 4.073 4.074 4.075 4.076 4.077 4.078 4.079 4.080 4.081 4.082 4.083 4.084 4.085 4.086 4.087 4.088 4.089 4.090 4.091 4.092 4.093 4.094 4.095 4.096 4.097 4.098 4.099 Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi
- ↑ Star Wars: Timelines
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Bloodline
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2
The Mandalorian — "Chapter 16: The Rescue"
- ↑
Bib Fortuna in the Databank (backup link)
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Star Wars: Card Trader
- ↑ Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Star Wars (2020) 2
- ↑ Bounty Hunters 1
- ↑ Bounty Hunters 5
- ↑ War of the Bounty Hunters Alpha 1
- ↑ War of the Bounty Hunters 5
- ↑ Bounty Hunters 42
- ↑ Star Wars Forces of Destiny — "Bounty Hunted"
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Star Wars Character Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded
- ↑ Star Wars: The Secrets of the Bounty Hunters
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Star Wars: Complete Locations
- ↑ "Dune Sea Songs of Salt and Moonlight" — From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 Return of the Jedi: Beware the Power of the Dark Side!
- ↑ Star Wars: Return of the Jedi junior novelization
- ↑ Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know
- ↑ Star Wars: The Vintage Collection (Pack: Special 3 Action Figures Set) (backup link)
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 "The Battle of Hoth and the Second Death Star" — Star Wars Encyclopedia
- ↑ Star Wars: Geektionary: The Galaxy from A - Z
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 The Book of Boba Fett — "Chapter 1: Stranger in a Strange Land"
- ↑ Star Wars Helmet Collection: Stormtrooper Databank A-Z: First Order–Fyrnocks
- ↑ "Day Wanna Wanga - The Tale of the Twi'leks" — Star Wars Insider 219
- ↑ Star Wars: The Rebel Files
- ↑ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary
- ↑ The Mandalorian — "Chapter 14: The Tragedy"
- ↑ The Mandalorian — "Chapter 9: The Marshal"
- ↑ Aftermath: Life Debt
- ↑ Legacy of Vader 2
- ↑ Live #Ham4Ham 5/4/16 -- May The Fourth Be With You on the Hamilton YouTube channel (backup link)
- ↑ What You Can Eat and Drink in STAR WARS: Galaxy's Edge by Amy Ratcliffe on nerdist.com (February 27, 2019) (backup link archived on February 28, 2019)
- ↑ The Making of Return of the Jedi
- ↑ 40.0 40.1 Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
External links[]
- Fall of Jabba by Dan Mumford on www.darkinkart.com (backup link archived on January 15, 2016) (First identified as Fall of Jabba)