Video editor 70sSciFiBoy (previously) shared archival Star Wars footage showing how Jabba the Hutt came to life. Jabba was first played by an actor who acted out the lines and a stop-motion image was superimposed over him during the editing process of A New Hope. By the time The Return of the Jedi came about, the creative team used designer Ralph McQuarrie‘s conceptual model of Jabba to create a full-sized puppet that was operated by several men.
This is an insight into how a skilled creative team developed Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art and brought the full-sized Jabba puppet to life by way of a handful of dedicated operators and puppeteers.
Here’s the full original clip narrated by Mark Hamill.
