George Lucas Hates His Best Star Wars Character
George Lucas hates both versions of Jabba the Hutt he created.
Star Wars is a franchise that changed everything in multiple industries, ushering in movies, tv series, novels, comics, and games to a world ready to cheer on the neverending battle between the Jedi and the Sith. With thousands of hours of content to watch, read, and interact with, there are characters that stand above the rest and leave fans loving (or hating) them with a passion that burns hotter than a Tatooine sun. Regardless of your feelings about him, George Lucas is the mastermind behind the universe and has his own feelings about one of his best characters: according to MovieWeb, he hates the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt.
Throughout the original trilogy, the trinity of heroes Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo faced several adversaries, most of which belonged to the evil Empire run by the Sith. However, a few standout villains were sprinkled in to make things more exciting, and the third installment, Return of the Jedi, saw Solo hanging on the wall of Jabba the Hutt’s lair. George Lucas famously hated the massive puppet used to bring the slug-like creature to life, even after changing it early in the process.
According to legend, the original character of Jabba was a man in an oversized fur coat, played by Declan Mulholland, and the famed director wasn’t happy with how the scene turned out, cutting it from the first film. He then revamped the character to be a sizeable slug-like creature using a state-of-the-art puppet, but famously disliked that version of the character as well, along with the half-a-million-dollar price tag that came along with him. He ultimately met his demise thanks to Leia (possibly for making her wear that brass bikini) when she wrapped her chain around his throat and choked the life out of him during Luke and Han’s escape from the Sarlacc.
Despite George Lucas’ hatred of the character, the slithery gangster found his way into the hearts of the fans, showing up in more stories and mediums. Hutt’s first follow-up appearance came when Lucas reimagined and remastered his masterpieces when he inserted a confrontation between Han and Hutt at the Mos Eisley Spaceport on Tatooine before Solo’s escape with Luke and Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope. George Lucas then inserted him as a VIP guest at the pod race in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and had two deeper plots in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The first storyline saw him scheme to break his uncle out of a Rebel prison to retrieve a journal of the Hutt’s criminal exploits; the uncle then slipped away, and Hutt hired the uncle’s former lover to assassinate him. The second storyline saw Count Dooku attempt to recruit the neutral Hutts to the side of the Empire by kidnapping Hutt’s son and framing the Jedi.
George Lucas has created an expansive universe that covers thousands of years on hundreds of worlds and developed a deep roster of characters. Within the halls of legends, few compelling characters are not part of the Jedi or Sith, with the storylines being dominated by force sensitivity. With so few choices of characters not using lightsabers, Jabba the Hutt is one of the most intriguing and most formidable, even if George Lucas disagrees.
