2009: State of Star Wars — Page 2

Negative one,

You are a massive tool.

Everyone else,

Thanks for your thoughtful responses.

I have to agree with rcb, he looked better than the DVD Jabba. 1997 Jabba didn't look good by any means, but most certainly better than the DVD Jabba.

The problem was that the scene simply was not filmed this way. The character of Jabba the Hutt we met in ROTJ couldn't have possibly fit in that scene. Period. It just wouldn't work. So they made a much smaller version of him, but then you had the problem of the tail, so they did the only work around they could do and had Han step on his tail.

The scene just didn't work. It didn't fit. They were so bent on making it work they made many compromises with continuity (Jabba's size, apperance, temperment). Nice try, but I have to say "fail".

Fortunately Star Wars fans, especially the younger variety are willing to accept, defend, and absolutely love just about anything no matter how half-assed it was done. Jabba the Hutt was actually some good preparation for the prequels, preparing us to accept more half-assedness.

I daresay it was poor CGI even for '97 standards.

Heck, the thing is less lifelike & believable than oldschool '80s claymation...pretty pathetic when you think about it. And doncha just love how Han's hand passes right through Jabba's body several times? I can't believe that scene made it past quality control...

C3PX said:

I have to agree with rcb, he looked better than the DVD Jabba. 1997 Jabba didn't look good by any means, but most certainly better than the DVD Jabba.

Same here.

TMBTM said:

To me the problem with the 97 SE Jabba is (other than it is now poor CGI for our days standards) that he has too much facial expressions, it was disctracting from the 83 puppet. The 2004 Jabba, even if it's far from perfect is a step in the good direction IMO. Of course the real problem is that the scene itself did not had much thing to the movie. I did not like seeing Jabba in TPM ether because I like my Jabba mysterious until ROTJ.

I didn't mind that Jabba was in TPM.  At least he looked better than both the '97 and '04 Jabba.  I have more problem with him being in Star Wars than in the prequels.  His being in the prequels shouldn't ruin the "mysteriousness" of him in ROTJ because, strictly speaking, you should see ROTJ before TPM anyway.  It does ruin his credibility to see him in Star Wars, though.

The problem with the Jabba scene was that since they decided not to include the scene in the original film, they used a lot of the important plot points in the Greedo scene instead. So by reinstating the Jabba scene, a big chunk of dialogue from the Greedo scene is repeated almost verbatim. It's just a redundant scene that doesn't need to be there.

Quite right. Case in point, "even I get boarded sometimes; do you think I had a choice?" during the Greedo scene is a direct dialogue lift from the Jabba scene. Totally redundant.

I guess, in addition to shooting second, Han has to explain himself at least twice. After all, it's only gentlemanly.

And, of course, by the time they got to ROTJ, the character of Jabba had changed significantly.  Therefore, trying to paste that Jabba into Star Wars just didn't work.  It was like trying to fit a blobby slug-like peg into a round hole.

rcb said:

"What the heck was George thinking? That might as well have been a totally different Hutt."

This is a sig-worthy quote if I ever read one! This is the kind of quote that should be passed around out of context to allow people to puzzle over it.

It is also kind of novel to read rcb say the words, "what the heck was george thinking?" Sentiments shared by countless SW fans from 1997 - present.

I never really minded the fact that Jabba in ANH:SE looked different than he did in RotJ. There are a few ways to rationalize it--Dark Horse did a Jabba miniseries in which he eats several people, sure to put on the pounds--but in the end, it's just a special effect in service of the story. No more or less suspension of disbelief is required than for any other questionable special effect. The change in Jabba's appearance is no more jarring than the change in the Emperor's.

I agree that the scene adds nothing to the movie, and it ruins the beat when the Falcon is properly introduced with a minor swell in the score and an appropriate exclamation from Luke. That is why it belongs in a special edition, and not the standard edition.

Well, in that case, Scruffy has a point.  You could just as easily say that ROTJ made no effort to keep the emperor looking or sounding like he did in ESB, and we should therefore hate that, and the change in '04 is therefore justified.  I will argue that the '97 Jabba looks like crap, but there are many more important reasons than special effects continuity that cause me to hate it.

Actually, I felt Boba Fett's apperance in the Jabba scene in the hanger bay was another mark against that scene. They only put him there because he is such a popular character. But this guy is suppose to be one of the galaxies absolute best bounty hunters, and yet he is just hanging around like one of Jabba's kronies. If Han had a mark on his head, and the great expert Boba Fett was in the area, why would some stupid newbie bounty hunter like Greedo get to him first. Or at the very least, why wouldn't he be off somewhere else capturing and collecting on bigger bounties, rather than playing a lousy hired thug for Jabba. Makes Boba seem like a loser who spends most his life just hanging around some obese giant slug.

And don't forget the way that Fett mugs the camera like a complete asshole.  "Hey, it's me, Boba Fett!  Buy my action figures!"

I felt the same way. It was sooooo obvious the way he paused in front of the camera, like, "just in case you missed him- look! It's Boba Fett! See?! He's in Star Wars now! Isn't it cool what we can do with computers now?! Woo hoo!"

LOL.

2x post.

It doesn't matter whether or not all the characters in the hanger with Jabba were bounty hunters. It is neither here nor there and has absolutely no bearing on the comments of mine that you quoted above.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Dark Horse's comics series takes place before ANH, so it doesn't account for the difference between ANH and ROTJ Jabbas.

I probably haven't read it in ten years, and don't remember anything placing it pre-ANH, but if that's where licensing has placed it, so it goes.

And Jabba was a lot more than just different in size. They gave him an appearance that totally changed his personality, from sinister and clever to silly and cutesy. It wasn't just a bad special effect. A special effect that doesn't work is presumably at least intended to work, but with Jabba there was clearly no intention of making it consistent with the ROTJ Jabba, so the scene screams out contempt for what had been previously established in the films and thus for the old films as a whole.

There's nothing silly or cutesy about his appearance--at least, no sillier than he was in RotJ. It's simply a slightly different appearance, due to the limitations placed upon and inherent to the CGI artists of the time. Perhaps your impression of his personality is based more on his mood than his appearance? Like all creditors and collection agencies, he is relatively friendly the first time he calls to collect--but he means business, and will freeze you in carbonate (or do worse to your credit score) if you don't pay up.