MovieChat Forums > Star Wars (1977) Discussion > Does anybody else hate the Jabba scene i...

Does anybody else hate the Jabba scene in the special editions?

posted 6 years ago by TMC-4 (20475)
29 replies | jump to latest

This may sound kind of corny, but it kills the mystique and ambiguity surrounding what Jabba looks like leading up to Return of the Jedi. Before that, we only heard about Jabba and by Empire Strikes Back, we see how far his reach is in terms of getting Solo. So him being shoehorned here, completely loses that entire effect.

Plus, the scene in general makes no sense. Why did Jabba send Greedo if he knew where Han was? And why would he be surprised that Han "fried" Greedo? Plus, the the entire thing is redundant anyway since this scene shares some of the same dialogue as with the Greedo scene. And you have Han repeating the same lines twice in a short period of time.

[–] FootOfDavros (8681) 9 months ago

I prefer the portly Irish gentleman Jabba.

I wish they'd just left him in. It makes it kind of hard watching Return Of The Jedi when you know he's supposed to be a portly Irishman.

I like to see them release a special edition of ROTJ where they replace that stupid giant slug like creature with a CGI version of the portly Irishman...

[–] overseas7 (5066) 3 months ago

I think it is superfluous.

[–] Aylmer (616) 3 months ago

I agree on all the points, but I'm also surprised nobody has mentioned that Jabba doesn't physically match his appearance in JEDI in the slightest bit. How does he grow by 2-3x over the course of just a couple years? Is he supposed to be just a juvenile gangster slug in this film? How would he have had time to create a far-reaching criminal organization already if he grows this fast?

He also comes off as ineffective and weak in the special edition, so it not only kills the mystique but it also makes him a far less threatening character than he appears to be at the start of JEDI.

1997 was a crash-course for me in the value of keeping cut scenes cut. Often they just serve to make the movie worse and are best left as bonus features on some DVD. I learned a similar lesson around the same time after purchasing the "Extended Directors Cut" of DAWN OF THE DEAD.

[–] overseas7 (5066) 3 months ago

All these reasons that you mentioned make the scene superfluous. Well, it is always possible to find some reasons in a movie why he has physically changed too much in such a short time, specially if we are speaking about an alien organism, but it is just that this scene did not bring something good to the movie.

[–] Aylmer (616) 3 months ago

The only purpose it serves is to get butts in seats in 1997 for the theatrical re-issue of the movie. At the time, it was a cute "ah-ha!" moment for audiences familiar with Star Wars. Beyond that, the scene makes zero sense to include as canon in any of the physical media releases. It's kinda insane that the current version is what'll be remembered as the actual movie now.

Revisionism is 99% the wrong move with old movies. The only case I can think of where it's warranted is WAR OF THE WORLDS where they painted out the obvious wires holding up the spaceships because you could never see them on film and video prints but DVD and Blu-ray made it stunningly obvious to the point where they took you out of the movie.