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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

CT When did Jabba REALLY become a slug?

Discussion in 'Classic Trilogy' started by Lt. Hija, Feb 15, 2016.

  1. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    But take a look at the scene and notice how close Han and Jabba are. They touch each other several times and Jabba puts his arm on Han's shoulder.
    If you are going to put a bigger creature there, then you might obscure Han or have Han be really close to it. Plus there is the issue of eye lines. The human Jabba was shorter than Han so he looked down when he talked to him.
    And why hire an actor of this size? Surely having a thinner actor would have made the job much easier. Of course no actor at all would be even better as having an actor there makes the job harder with little if any benefit.

    As for other angles, since we don't know that any such exist they cant' really be used to argue in favor of a stop motion creature.

    Plus, having an actor there and in full costume, that is more expensive than just having a stand in there and having Lucas do Jabba's lines. I don't know if the situation was the same in England back then but on TV, most often the extras don't speak. The reason is that if they speak, that costs more money. Lucas didn't have a big budget on ANH. So why spend the money to hire an actor, making a costume and have him talk when it would have been much cheaper to film Han talking to space and having Lucas or some script guy provide Jabba's lines.
    No, the only way this makes sense is that if Lucas planned for this to be how the scene was supposed to be at one point. He obviously later changed his mind and cut the scene. But if he really wanted Jabba to be an alien, he did have masks that he could use.

    To sum up, if Lucas wanted some stop motion creature there it would have been both easier and cheaper to film Han alone. Since Lucas didn't, that speaks against this idea.

    Bye for now.
    The Guarding Dark
     
  2. DavidSword79

    DavidSword79 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2015
    A stop-motion animator would have been asked to make decisions about where and how to place the model to avoid obscuring Han. "You might obscure Han" or "Han might be really close to the model". I'm not finding this persuasive.

    Digital Jabba is shorter in the SEs. Why would we expect stop-motion Jabba to be taller? I'm not seeing how this negates the possibility of a stop-motion Jabba.

    The larger actor fills the space better, gives the animator a sense of what the director wanted in terms of lighting and position.

    Sure it can. Every other scene in ANH has lots of coverage for the editors to take advantage of. Why should this one scene have been any different?

    From what I understand, Lucas was inexperienced in the area of capturing plates for stop-motion animation effects to be added in later. He didn't fully grasp what was entailed or what the limitations were. I don't know what his thinking was at the time; for me to suggest otherwise would be arrogance. But I can hazard a guess that he hired an actor to hit the marks on set as a guide for the animator(s). As to speaking the dialogue, this is no different from Peter Mayhew speaking lines of dialogue on-set ("That man is mad!"), even knowing the lines would be re-recorded later.

    According to your personal opinion. Yours is not an unarguable position made of irrefutable facts. The default position here is the official one provided by Lucas. If you're going to contest that, then you're going to need more than personal incredulity and repeating variations of "I think he would have done it differently". I'm not finding that tactic very persuasive.
     
  3. oierem

    oierem Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2009
    I know we're not going to convince you (and no, there is no absolute evidence to support our claim -but accepting an official statement as truth just because it's official is against how historians work to digg out the truth), but let me ask you two questions:
    -Why doesn't the original shooting script of SW mention that Jabba is supposed to be an alien?
    -When can we find the first (chronological) mention of Jabba being an alien?


    And about the alternate angles... we don't know, of course, but one might argue that an alternative angle would not help to solve the problem (unless you cut AWAY from Han and Jabba to something else... which the scene does, once, creating a continuity error -Chewe walks away from the door twice- perhaps to hide another section of the shot that was impossible to make work with a CGI Jabba ), since Han would still walk around Jabba. Considering that they had serious problems with the SE to solve that, we could assume that they did not have any other options available.
     
  4. DavidSword79

    DavidSword79 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2015
    oierem: I want to assure you that you will absolutely be able to convince me with facts in evidence and logical analysis of those facts. Not speculation or conjecture that what you're proposing might be correct, but persuasive evidence that supports your position. I'm not accepting Lucas' statement " just because it's official", but because it's the best explanation that addresses all of the evidence we do have.

    As to your questions:

    -Why doesn't the original shooting script of SW mention that Jabba is supposed to be an alien?

    Well, it does! Here is the text the OP describes as being from the shooting script, March 15, 1976, page # 53:

    Jabba the Hut and a half-dozen grisly alien pirates and purple creatures stand in the middle of the docking bay. Jabba is
    the grossest of the slavering hulks and his scarred face is
    a grim testimonial to his prowess as a vicious killer.

    The entire group is made up of "grisly alien pirates and purple creatures", of which either some or all are "slavering hulks". Of these hulks, Jabba is the "grossest". Therefore, logically, Jabba is either an alien pirate or a purple creature.

    -When can we find the first (chronological) mention of Jabba being an alien?

    If you find my reasoning persuasive: March 15, 1976. If not, then 1979, in the Art of Star Wars book. (I don't know the month of publication.)
     
  5. Lt. Hija

    Lt. Hija Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 8, 2015
    [​IMG]

    I say it again, this infamous (post-1983?) storyboard - http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YL9clp0zVZU/UXIbrGWXuLI/AAAAAAAAPZU/TEyA6tx5r6c/s1600/jabba-storyboard.jpg - looks like a fabrication to propagate the myth that Lucas had wanted a slug from the beginning.
    • The added description of Jabba as a slug didn't show up before 1979 (three years after the shooting of the Jabba scenes)
    • The description clearly mentions eyes on extended feelers which the 1983 Jabba - which is what wee in this "ANH" storyboard - never had.
    Frankly, I'd dare to speculate that the added description in 1979 was based on this particular Ralph McQuarrie storyboard from ESB for Dagobah (illustrated above), which then was probably the moment George Lucas had an epiphany what Jabba the Hut could look like.
     
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  6. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Let's take a look at what you, yourself said;
    You said that the stop motion creature put OVER the human Jabba would be BIGGER than him.
    So having Han and Jabba so CLOSE to each other works totally counter to that goal.
    Putting a larger creature there, with so little space between them, this is makes the job really hard. The creature must be big enough to obscure the human actor but not big enough to obscure Han.
    Don't you see why this is totally impractical to do?

    Nope, you can't assume they exist without proof.
    As oierem said, when it came time to do the SE, the people that tried to put CGI Jabba in the scene had considerable difficulty with it. Esp when Han walked around Jabba.
    IF alternate coverage or different takes existed, why wouldn't they use them?
    Since they didn't, this implies they don't exist.



    First, consider what you say here. Lucas don't know about stop motion animation and he plans to have a fairly important scene with such a creature. And yet at NO point in the preparation and planning for this scene does he EVER consult a stop motion animator as to how to do this scene?
    This makes Lucas not only incompetent but also rather stupid. That he plans for a stop motion creature but doesn't ask any questions as to how this would be done. He just films the scene, no planning needed. Sorry, I give Lucas more credit than this. Consider, this is a fairly long scene and Jabba has quite a bit of dialogue. So the stop motion puppet has to be able to talk in some way. So it not just a creature to fight, it needs to talk and quite a bit too.

    Second, as I've said, hiring an actor and making a costume would be more EXPENSIVE than just using some stand in or extra and have Lucas or a script guy provide Jabba's lines.
    Lucas didn't have money to waste when making this film so why would he be foolish enough to waste it here?

    Third, Peter Mayhew was NOT an extra, he was a fully paid actor. An extra that speaks lines cost more money than a silent one.


    [/QUOTE]

    I do know a bit about how these kinds of scene are normally done.

    First you design the creature itself. Either in picture, maquette or model. To get an idea how big or small it is. How tall, how wide, what does it look like etc. Both are useful in blocking the scene, to have correct eye-lines for the actors and it would also be good if the actor has some idea about what he is talking to.

    Second, you might do a reference pass with some form of stand in present. Just to rehearse the scene, to play it through for the actors, to find marks etc.

    Third, you do an empty slate where you film the scene with just the actor/actors there and an empty space where the creature is supposed to be. This is to make it easy to add something to that empty space.

    Fourth you animate the creature separately and finally then you composite the two together.

    Here, as far as I know, there was no design on how a stop motion Jabba was supposed to look. The novel is rather vague and from what was said there, a guy with a mask or makeup would do. A stop motion creature was not needed. This is evidence against a stop motion creature.
    When you use such, you need a design BEFORE you shoot a scene, not after. Otherwise how are you supposed to block the scene?
    And we know that Lucas did extensive pre-production with sketches from Ralph McQuarrie. Are there any such art work from 1976-77 with a stop motion creature of Jabba?
    As I've said several times, using an actor in full costume is costly and if the plan is to put something over him, totally unnecessary.
    Even if Lucas was ignorant on how stop motion worked, which I find rather unlikely, he would have sense enough to consult an animator before doing the scene. An animator would be needed anyway and why he wait to talk to them until after he had filmed the scene?
    Lastly, filming the scene with a rather big actor there and having him and Harrison be so close together and touching each other and what not. This would be a totally impractical way to film this scene if the intent was to add a creature over the human Jabba.

    To sum up, no I don't have 100% total proof that Lucas didn't want to put a stop motion creature in the scene as filmed. I have presented what I know about how such scenes are normally done plus the lack of a design for a stop motion Jabba from back then and other things.
    My intent is to show why this is more plausible than the alternative.

    Bye for now.
    Blackboard Monitor
     
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  7. BenToRen

    BenToRen Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 25, 2016
    I think it was in per-production of RotJ.... I used to always think Hutts were slugs but I think that Lucasfilm didn't have anything decided yet.
     
  8. Heroic BB-8

    Heroic BB-8 Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Dec 29, 2015
    this is my supposition RE: the Mos Eisley hangar scene.

    Lucas wanted an alien Jabba. due to diminishing time and/or resources this was proving very difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish so he settled for a human actor. but he wasn't satisfied. during editing he realized Greedo had given all the necessary information in the Cantina, so he happily cut the compromised version of Jabba. this gave him ~5 years to come up with a design that pleased him.
     
  9. oierem

    oierem Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2009
    You're probably very right in general, although there are a couple of holes in there:
    -Jabba's scene was shot in the very first week of studio shooting -so it wasn't a case of money or time running out.
    -Actually, the Greedo scene didn't include all the information (it was designed to set up the Jabba scene later). It was only when the Jabba scene was cut that Lucas literally inserted a line from that scene into the Greedo scene ("Even I get boarded sometimes, do you think I had a choice?" , which if you listen to it closely, it sounds different from the rest of Han's lines).


    About Jabba's description in the script: the fact that additional information describing Jabba as a slug was ADDED in 1979 (along with the EPISODE IV subtitle), in a script that was presented as the original shooting script already speaks of a desire to alter the original intentions. I don't think the original description of Jabba means that he's an alien: he is the biggest of the gang of pirates -who were meant to be colorful and interesting, but ended up looking like regular humans and recycled Greedos. In any case, not an alien that would require such a complicated way of portraying (again, stop-motion wasn't even considered for the movie at all, until very very late, when Tippett did the chess sequence with stop-motion after the early attempts failed).
     
  10. SlashMan

    SlashMan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2012
    I believe that Lucas kicked around the idea of a giant alien Jabba, but once it came time for shooting, it proved improbable and they simply put a fuzzy coat on an actor.
     
  11. jedi9617

    jedi9617 Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Jan 16, 2016

    Solid comic!
     
  12. DavidSword79

    DavidSword79 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2015
    Space is three-dimensional. A larger stop-motion creature placed over the plate with the actor on it would have room on both sides of the original actor. Why are you missing this obvious solution? Where Han is on the left and the Jabba actor is on the right, even if the stop-motion creature were placed to line up with the Jabba actor's left-most contour, there is still empty space on his right to fill in. Can you not see this? Do I need to find another way to explain it?

    I never "assumed" additional angles existed. I suggested they might, and proposed using them as just one way to work around the problem of Jabba's tail. Remove them from the discussion if you like, they're not necessary, only helpful.

    The original film as I'm sure you're aware was a chaotic and problematic production. Hindsight is 20/20. Solutions often seem obvious in retrospect. Lucas may have believed he knew enough from seeing various Harryhausen films to just shoot the background plate and later, in post-production, he would find a stop-motion guy to make it all work. This is essentially what was done with the chess game on-board the Falcon. And if you're suggesting that every director who ever flew by the seat of his pants through a troubled shoot while saying "we'll fix it in post!" was "incompetent and stupid", then I invite you to reexamine the careers of FF Coppola, John Milius and many of the 70s auteur fillmmakers. In fact, the stirring and critically lauded film The Revenant (2015) was shot using very much this same approach.

    I already responded to that: for lighting and general reference for his eventual animator(s), and a voice track for the team in charge of looping.

    Sure, I know. What I don't know are the specifics of the Jabba actor's contract and paycheck. Do you? It's plausible that Lucas thought the money was well spent given that he got a terrific background plate for his animators and a voice track for looping. How can you say with any certainty that he didn't? You're making several unsupported assumptions here.

    Sure, under ideal conditions with time and money for planning, with a production company that understood what was expected, and a director or producer experienced with stop-motion animation, your description of the planning stages would be accurate. None of those conditions were in place during the shooting of the original film. Lucas may have believed he was doing what was required, but made the mistake of not hiring an animator to consult while production was happening (possibly because he was planning to do post in California while shooting took place in England). So he shot a plate that was unusable by animators or that would be too expensive and time-consuming to turn into an effective piece of animation. So he scrapped it, for good reason.

    At this point we're repeating ourselves; you're repeating assertions I've already addressed, and I'm losing interest. We each have our considered and informed opinions, and we come out on opposing sides.
     
  13. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Space is 3D but a film frame is 2D and since Han walks AROUND Jabba, that space is even more restricted.
    As the people that had to put CGI Jabba into the SE noticed.
    Pretty much the only reason they were able to do it is that they could move Han. Which wasn't really doable in the 70's.

    As others have pointed out, the Jabba scene was shot early in the schedule. So things had not yet become so stressful as to put Lucas in the hospital.
    Also, how do shot this type of scene is not difficult nor would it be something that a clever man like Lucas would be ignorant off.
    He would know enough that he needs to shoot a blank slate or animation pass. Where empty space is left for a creature to be added. Shooting an empty slate is not hard, nor does it take a lot of time.
    Do the scene first in a reference pass and then again with an animation pass.

    Except the chees board is empty, it has nothing else on it. Lucas didn't put a bunch of wind up toys on it only to later add effects over them. He did the sensible thing, he filmed the scene with the chess board empty and then added the creatures.
    Also, the Jabba scene is way more complicated than this. Jabba has a lot of dialogue and Han has to interact with him quite a bit.
    I give Lucas credit of not filming a scene in an very difficult way for no reason.

    And this would make it a reference pass, after which you shoot the clean slate or animation pass.
    Lucas was a big fan of Harryhausen's work and the technique they used was not all that new. Film a blank slate and add a creature to it. Lucas would know enough of the basics to not film it like he did if he planned to put a creature there.

    Not really,
    FACT, Lucas had a modest budget for Star Wars.
    FACT, making a suit and hiring an actor costs money and takes time. He didn't make a lot of wind up toys for the chess scene. Why? Because it wasn't needed and would cost money.
    FACT, having the actor IN the scene makes it NOT a background plate. It makes it a reference pass.
    A background plate is shot with empty space where the creature is supposed to be.
    So assuming Lucas hired the actor just to make the reference pass good, he would then film the scene again without the actor. But he didn't. Ergo the actor was hired to actually be Jabba.

    Again, the knowledge to shoot a empty slate or animation pass would be something that Lucas or his producer would be aware of. The crew in England would also be aware of this so if Lucas told them what this scene would eventually be, even assuming that Lucas couldn't figure out the obvious, they would have told him.

    Also Lucas had done extensive preproduction and had loads of designs of creatures. But no design of a stop motion Jabba, from 1976-77, has been shown to exist. If Lucas did plan for such a creature, he would have some designs for it. But he didn't. As oierem said, stuff was added to the ANH script in 1979 to make it seem that slug Jabba was planned from the start when it wasn't.
    So someone is trying to rewrite history here.


    [/QUOTE]

    Your opinion is seemingly based only on Lucas's, much later claim, that he always planned for a stop motion creature Jabba. As was said, Lucas isn't always a totally reliable source of information.
    My opinion is based on the lack of a design for such a creature from the production time of the first film. The totally impractical way that Lucas filmed it if the intent was to add a creature. The original script that makes no mention of Jabba looking like some big creature and if he needed to be an alien, a guy with a mask would do.
    I simply think that Lucas is clever enough and knows enough about film NOT to film the scene that way if he always planned for a creature there.
    Maybe he at one point thought of a creature, discarded it, and filmed with an actor instead.
    Then later he again though of a creature but realized that the filmed scene was totally useless for that and dropped it again.
    Simply put, I give Lucas credit for being smart enough to know to film the scene again without the Jabba actor. It would not take much time and would not cost much compared with what he had already spent.

    But we won't see eye to eye on this, so perhaps we'll drop it.

    Bye.
    Old Stoneface
     
  14. DavidSword79

    DavidSword79 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2015
    Samuel Vimes: I acknowledge all your points, and I must say you make a good case. I remain, however, convinced of the possibility that Lucas' version is correct.

    What you seem to be missing is that people make mistakes -- of judgement, or in the execution of ideas. Simple human error may explain some of the more ambiguous elements in Lucas' version of events. Despite your personal certainty, it's possible that Lucas simply did not understand the limitations of the stop-motion medium. It's possible he believed that shooting a background plate with a live actor, who would later be replaced/animated over, would be the best course of action. If he believed this, he was mistaken, as your analysis clearly shows. But Lucas' expertise was in live action cinema, not in stop-motion or in Harryhausen's development of that art, so-called Dynamation. Lucas may have simply misunderstood the complexities involved. Split-screen, bi-packing the negative, black-paint matting, rear-screen projection, figure animation, and so forth were not Lucas's forte. It doesn't mean he was stupid or incompetent, just limited, as all people are in some capacity. His genius did not extend to stop-motion. He may simply have made the wrong choices when filming what he planned as a stop-motion scene. All of your assurances that Lucas "would know" this or that are unconvincing, because it's purely conjectural on your part. He might have know, but we can't know any of that to a certainty.

    You fall on one side of the uncertainty, and I fall on the other. Without more specific evidence, this comes down to a question of belief. I believe that Lucas is telling the truth in this instance (though certainly he's been less than truthful in other explanations of the development of the SW Saga). You believe he is not. we both have our reasons. Yours are persuasive... but not 100% convincing to me.
     
  15. Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid

    Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 13, 2014
    It seems impossible like would be impossible to convincingly add a stop motion Jabba into the scene with 1970s technology as it is edited together currently. Even the 1997 version wasn't all that convincing. The 2004 version is much better.

    What's so amazing is the actor portraying Jabba has just the right body shape and height to be digitally replaced by Jabba Hutt and still have the correct eye lines for Han and body movement?
     
  16. Blur

    Blur Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 1999
    Interesting - I just discovered this thread. I still don't think that Lucas ever intended to include the human Jabba in the final cut of ANH re: the scene that was filmed. If that were the case, why did Lucas cut the scene out of the film? Because it ruined the pacing?! I guess that's possible.

    However, I do believe that Lucas always envisioned that Jabba would be an alien.
     
  17. Slicer87

    Slicer87 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2013
    We have to take into account Lucas was always a rampant flip flopper. It likely could have been he originally envisioned Jabba as an alien but lacked the budget at the time. In which case, he may have tried to settle with a human actor for Jabba but decided it wasn't working. In ANH, there are some deleted landspeeder scenes with Luke he did not use because the effect was not good. As for just using a alien mask, if you watch ANH, all the alien masks except for Chewie are pretty simple and cheap. Even Greedo is a pretty basic and fake looking mask that barely had any mouth movement and zero expressions.
     
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  18. Lt. Hija

    Lt. Hija Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 8, 2015
    Of course we can all believe whatever we want and take the blue pill or instead go for the red one, i.e. familiarize ourselves with the actual evolution of the Jabba character in the original screenplays to get to the bottom of the issue:

    "Jabba the Hutt" was already featured in the second ANH draft from January 28, 1975 (!), That's about one year and a half before Lucas could actually shoot these scenes. Here is the screenplay transcript - http://starwarz.com/starkiller/adventures-of-the-starkiller-second-draft/ - and here are some exerpts:

    47. INT. PIRATE STARSHIP – ENTRY BAY
    The entry bay of the large starship is also the main lounge area of the ship. Two gruff and grisly pirates are playing a kind of dice game with thin little sticks. The larger and mangiest of the two slavering hulks, JABBA THE HUTT by name, throws his dice at Chewbacca.
    JABBA
    I told you not to bring that thing on board again… Where have you been anyway… Captain wants the conveyor system extended… and I notice you haven’t turned around those punch chips yet. What are we keeping you on board for anyway?
    Chewbacca slinks back outside the starship as Han helps the still slightly crazed Montross aboard the craft. Han generally ignores Jabba’s tirade.
    HAN
    Where is everybody, anyway?
    JABBA
    They took the shipment of “Covina” to Gordon.

    ...

    53. INT. PIRATE STARSHIP – ENTRY BAY
    Han and the lumbering pirate captain charge into the entry bay, almost knocking down Jabba the Hutt.
    JABBA
    What’s going on?
    HAN
    Sabotage! The reactor’s have gone wild. Get out. Get out… Wait, I forgot about Montross…
    Jabba the Hutt and the other pirate stumble over each other, racing for the exit. Little Artoo scoots out of the way just as the two pirates rush past the group and into the spacestation main building. They are quickly followed by the wobbly captain. Luke watches the trio with puzzled amazement as the blast door slides closed behind them. Chewbacca gets a message on his belt com-link, and gestures to Luke that they should enter the deserted starship. Luke and the two robots reluctantly follow the giant Wookiee into the entry bay. Chewbacca pushes a button, and the main hatch slams shut. The alarms continue to ring.

    Add to this there is a John Mollo costume sketch for Cantina "space pirates" (first featured in the Art of SW, 1979 and at the recent Star Wars Identities exhibit) which annotates one of the (human!) space pirates as "Jabba the Hutt":

    [​IMG]

    So if I ever hear again George Lucas claiming that he wanted Jabba the Hutt to be an alien from the beginning, I'd immediately call this ban-****. All the evidence and early screenplays clearly reveal that he was a human character, but some time after the film had been finished he just changed his mind.
     
  19. Qui-Riv-Brid

    Qui-Riv-Brid Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2013
    There is a reason why Lucas kept it in the final scene though.

    It makes it far funnier that Jabba isn't one.
     
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  20. Slicer87

    Slicer87 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2013
    Which one of those two is supposed to be Jabba? The 3 eyed one isn't human but at least humanoid. What is interesting is that both those guys have green skin and thin noses with large nostrils which the final slug Jabba has. The unmasked one has unusually big eyebags and green skin which isn't conductive to being entirely human, perhaps a hybrid?
     
  21. oierem

    oierem Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2009
    We could also ask: "why did Lucas shoot the scene at all (if he wasn't intending to include the human Jabba)?" or rather, "why did Lucas shoot the scene THAT WAY, with Han interacting closely with a human...who wasn't supposed to be there?"

    As stated above, Jabba wasn't a slug in the early version of the scripts (or any version of the script, actually). He was a human, or a humanoid at best, a big hulk with a scarred face. It's very possible that Lucas was imagining a deformed kind of humanoid gangster as Jabba.

    Anyway, by the time he shot the scene, Jabba had been "reduced" to an average-looking human. Why Lucas didn't choose to create a mask (as with every other alien of the film) to give Jabba a larger-than-life quality, I can't say. But sure as hell, Lucas shot the scene with an actor and was intending to use the scene as shot.

    So, why did Lucas cut the scene? Truth be told, it was one of the earliest scenes to be cut, so it was a clear choice by Lucas. It's very likely that Lucas felt that the human-version of Jabba was lacking. He was unimpressive, rather short, normal-looking. Plus the background "Greedo-s" were distracting and the scene wasn't really needed (again, the whole scene was a scaled-down version of the scenes that appeared in earlier scripts). So, against Marcia Lucas' opinion, George cut the scene.

    Then, SW is a great hit and Lucas sees the oportunity to do the things he couldn't do the first time around. He decides that Jabba will appear in a sequel, and he will be a huge puppet slug-monster. Excited about the idea, he inmediately starts trying to figure out how to integrate this new Jabba into the original scene (remember that the 1979 official published script of ANH was already describing Jabba as an alien, and the comic version of the film also showed an alien Jabba) . The idea of an alien-Jabba made the scene worthwhile again.

    As always, Lucas twists the truth to make everything fit into his "original vision", and this is another example. The truth is that the scene, as shot, was never supposed to include an alien Jabba. However, it's also true that the idea of Jabba as something more than a regular looking human was always in Lucas' head, and that in his mind, the scene doesn't have any appeal with a human Jabba -and was very keen on changing him into an alien as soon as he got the oportunity).
     
  22. Kuro

    Kuro Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 17, 2015
    It’s really hard to say. Although I do wanna point out that they actually rewrote and reshot the Greedo scene in order for it to contain the exposition that the Jabba scene would’ve provided. Also, with that in mind, it’s interesting that, pre-Special Edition, the Greedo scene was the only scene in the movie to have subtitles. There are no subtitles for R2-D2, the Jawas, or Chewbacca, but Greedo has subtitles. I’m willing to bet that was a last-minute decision on Lucas’s part, since you really can’t have an exposition scene when one of your characters is speaking gibberish. I’m willing to bet that, originally, that scene was supposed to go unsubtitled. It certainly fits with the documentary feel Lucas was going for.
     
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  23. oierem

    oierem Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2009
    -They reshot the Greedo scene (actually, just the close-ups of Greedo) mainly because the original mask was bad and the hands could barely hold the gun. Since the reshot didn't include any dialogue (as it was to be dubbed later), it's not accurate to say that the scene was reshot to include the the exposition. All the exposition was done with subtitles + a line of Han Solo taken directly from the Jabba scene, used over a close-up short of the hand holding the gun.
    -The original scene was certainly shot in English from both parts, but I think that using subtitles was something that something that Lucas found very appealing.
     
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  24. Lt. Hija

    Lt. Hija Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 8, 2015
    Slicer87 wrote

    Which one of those two is supposed to be Jabba?

    Unfortunately the annotation is outside of the frame in exhibit picture, I have to ckeck my own images of the exhibit to provide a clear answer.

    oierem

    =D= Nothing to add here, but it looks like I probably have to make a transcript of the Skywalking passage featuring the discussion between Marcia and George Lucas.

    He was a human, or a humanoid at best, a big hulk with a scarred face. It's very possible that Lucas was imagining a deformed kind of humanoid gangster as Jabba.

    Just my pet theory, but I believe that's the character he originally had in mind for Jabba (i.e. the guy in the center):

    [​IMG]

    ;)

    Jabba description: "Jabba is the grossest of the salivering hulks and his scarred face is a grim testimonial to his prowess as a vicious killer."

    Description of Roofoo (erroneously known as 'Dr. Evazan'): "A short, grubby HUMAN and an even smaller RODENT-like beast join the belligerent monstrosity."
     
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  25. ThinPaperWings

    ThinPaperWings Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Feb 7, 2017

    This. You are strong with the Force my friend.
     
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