I find it funny, that out of all the OT practical effects in Jabba’s palace, I find Jabba the most convincing and every single other Rubber-mask alien completely unbelievable, whilst in A New Hope I don’t.
I’ve come to the conclusion that this might be due to a bigger focus on “bigger, better, more” in RotJ, whilst in ANH it was the little things that mattered.
Any thoughts on this? Is it just me? Am I alone?
I agree with you. With ANH, Lucas had to manage everything with a very tight budget, so they had to focus on what little they could do. They felt forced to hide in the background or rethink what they knew wouldn’t work.
For ROTJ, instead, they were working with a very high budget and could even use assets from TESB. You can see their special effects, both optical and practical, had improved a lot, but they probably overdid in some cases, like you said, and this could’ve led them to rush some of effects to make it on schedule.