SilverWook said:
The whole reason for the original human Jabba being cut has been murky since 1983, when that pesky storyboard of uncertain vintage appeared in the Making of a Saga documentary.
Here's how Gary Kurtz describe the reason for the Jabba scene being jettisoned back in 2002:
"...we had technical difficulties with that scene. We shot it over three times for camera problems, focus problems, and film stock problem, and then abandoned it because we ran out of time. We just said, "Well, the bulk of the information that comes across in that scene, about Jabba threatening Han Solo and wanting his money and all of that, we could get across in the scene in the Cantina, with Greedo." It's basically the same kind of information. So we just added some bits to the Greedo scene to make it a little bit longer that gets across that information, and then jettisoned that other scene. This all happened while we were shooting. It wasn't done in the cutting room."