page_title: Jabba the Hutt
section_title: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
hierarchical_section_title: Jabba the Hutt / Concept and creation / Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
caption_attribution_description: The first depiction of the Michelin Man making a toast. He is also known as Bibendum, possibly because of this poster. The phrase Nunc est Bibendum! is taken from the Odes of Horace.
context_page_description: Jabba Desilijic Tiure, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. He is a large, slug-like alien known as a Hutt who, like many others of his species, operates as a powerful crime lord within the galaxy. He is notable for never speaking Basic, the main characters' language, though able to understand it, always replying in the constructed language Huttese.
  In the original theatrical releases of the original Star Wars trilogy, Jabba the Hutt first appeared in Return of the Jedi. However, he is mentioned in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and, indirectly, in Solo: A Star Wars Story, while a previously deleted scene involving Jabba the Hutt was added to the 1997 theatrical re-release and subsequent home media releases of Star Wars. When first shot, this scene featured Declan Mulholland as a humanoid version of Jabba speaking the main character's language, which was digitally superimposed over with the character's monstrous current design when the footage was reincorporated into the film. In Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Jabba appears in a sequence recreated in CGI.
context_section_description: 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, drawing for further inspiration on an O'Galop cartoon figure flanking an early depiction of Bibendum (also known as the "Michelin Man"). Return of the Jedi costume designer Nilo Rodis-Jamero commented, 
  My vision of Jabba was literally Orson Welles when he was older. I saw him as a very refined man. Most of the villains we like are very smart people. But Phil Tippett kept imagining him as some kind of slug, almost like in Alice in Wonderland. 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."
caption: Image of Bibendum. Figure used is at viewer's right
exif: {"Image Copyright": ""}