Jabba the Hutt

Jabba the Hutt is a character in the Star Wars movies.

Jabba is of the Hutt race, and like most of his species, he is a gangster. He speaks Huttese, the language of the Hutt race. Hutts are a large slug-like race with thick, leathery skin, human-like arms, large dead-black eyes, and wide mouths. An adult Hutt may weigh in excess of several tons. The species displays apparent sexual dimorphism, with the males being larger than the females.

Prior to Episode 4 (A New Hope), Jabba sent Han Solo on a Kessel run to smuggle spice. However Han was forced to dump the spice when he was boarded by an Imperial starship. Jabba demanded that Han pay him the value of the cargo. When the smuggler failed to pay him back, he put a price on Han's head. Greedo attempted to collect the bounty, but was killed for his efforts. Jabba met Han in the Millennium Falcon's hangar bay, where he agreed to let Han go, in exchange for a premium of 20%. But that if Han delayed in 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.

George Lucas originally filmed a scene in which Jabba, played by a human actor speaking English, confronted Solo in the Millennium Falcon's launch bay, but this scene was not used in the final film. For the 1997 remastered edition of the film the scene was restored, but with a CGI version of Jabba obscuring the original actor and newly recorded dialogue in "Huttese". A snag was that Harrison Ford, playing Solo, had originally walked around the human actor, but the slug-like digital Jabba had a large tail. Lucas and his effects team solved the problem by manipulating the image so that Solo appears to walk over Jabba's tail and Jabba yelps in pained surprise.

In the radio version of the series, this scene was included but with a new character called Heater replacing Jabba.

The bounty on Solo's head was eventually collected, between Episodes 5 and 6, by Boba Fett.

In Episode 6, Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker entered Jabba's palace on Tatooine to free Han Solo. Jabba the Hutt was strangled by Princess Leia during the freeing of Han Solo from captivity. In this movie, Jabba is "played" by a large puppet requiring several operators.

In the movie Spaceballs, Jabba the Hutt was parodied as, "Pizza the Hut," a disguisting cheesy blob.