Jabba ' s rancor Jabba ' s rancor was a rancor given to the Hutt kajidii Jabba Desilijic Tiure as a birthday present from his henchmen . It was kept beneath a trapdoor in his chamber at his palace . He was fond of dropping people into the rancor ' s pit and watching them be eaten . Biography . Early life . The rancor was being transported from the Tarsunt system by Grizzid for a Bothan merchant named Grendu , when it broke out , killing Grizzid and his crew , and causing the ship to crash on Tatooine . A Jawa Sandcrawler captain named Tteel Kkak discovered the wreckage and informed Jabba ' s servants Bib Fortuna and Bidlo Kwerve . They presented it to Jabba as a birthday present . Fortuna was rewarded by being made Jabba ' s Majordomo , while Kwerve was fed to the rancor . Serving Jabba . Malakili was bought from the Circus Horrificus in order to care for the rancor . He became very emotionally attached to it . While he took the rancor for a walk in the desert , it saved him from a small gang of Sand People . Jabba enjoyed pitting the rancor against other exotic monsters for his amusement . It always won , but was seriously wounded by three Caridan combat arachnids . When Malakili discovered that Jabba planned to pit the rancor against a krayt dragon , which would surely kill it , he made plans to betray Jabba to Lady Valarian and escape Tatooine with the rancor . Death . Jabba frequently used his rancor as an amusing form of execution . Oola , a Twi ' lek dancer , was dropped in for resisting Jabba . At some point , Jabba ' s Tusken battle talisman somehow ended up falling into its pit , where the rancor ate it , too . Later , Jabba used it against Luke Skywalker , accidentally dropping a Gamorrean guard named Jubnuk in as well . The rancor ate Jubnuk , but Skywalker proved to be more of a challenge : the young Jedi Knight , when it first attempted to eat him , placed a large femur between its jaws , forcing the rancor to let him go before snapping it in two with effort . It tried to devour him again , but Luke smashed its hand in self - defense with a rock . Luke , out of options due to the rancor ' s handlers preventing him from escaping , lured it under a heavy portcullis , then smashed the control panel with a skull , causing the gate to pierce and crush the beast ' s skull , killing it . Ironically , the skull Luke threw had belonged to its first victim , Kwerve . As it was dying , the rancor moaned weakly , with Malakili rushing to the rancor ' s aid and then breaking down in tears when he discovered it was too late . Legacy . Jubnuk was later cut out of the rancor ' s stomach , still alive due to both his armor and the Tusken battle talisman he found inside the stomach , which he had been tasked to find earlier . Later , Luke stated that he had another reason for killing it , other than defending himself . The rancor was so abused and mistreated that rehabilitating it would have been impossible , and Luke believed that it would be best to put the poor creature out of its misery . Even two decades after the fact , Luke expressed that it was a shame that he had to kill the rancor . He felt that as a species , they were such fine creatures . Behind the scenes . An image often mistaken to be the rancor battling a krayt dragon is in reality , a joke from the crew of ILM . They placed a model of one of the from the film " " in the arms of the rancor model and took a picture . The picture was included in the book " " . A creature based on the appearance of this dragon appears in one of Jabba ' s creature pens in " Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy " . The rancor was originally supposed to be a man in a suit , but the results weren ' t satisfyingly realistic , so it was filmed in the form of a puppet . The roars from the rancor were remixed from an audio recording of an aggressive . The rancor is a mini boss in . The rancor also acted as a boss in the " Return of the Jedi " chapter of " " . Although its fate was overall the same , the rancor can also " summon " more Gamorrean guards by stomping and causing more to fall down everywhere , alongside rocks . After the player backs it up to the gate , the player then delivers the coup de grace by Force - pushing a rock at the control panel .