8 Early Star Wars Character Designs You Won’t Believe
1. Jabba The Hutt
Once described by the critic Roger Ebert as a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat, Jabba The Hutt is by no means one of the Star Wars universe's lookers.
And if we chart his development back to the concept phase, the situation doesn't get much better for him.
The galaxy's most feared crimelord went through a number of ugly iterations before George Lucas settled on the slug-like creature we know all too well, one of the earliest being this bizarre amalgamation of man and catfish from Ralph McQuarrie.
Lucas kicked a number of other ideas about, including a Wookie-like version of Jabba, and even cast a man as the character - Northern Irish actor Declan Mulholland - for a scene in a New Hope that was not completed in time.
Of course, Lucas eventually got around to replacing Mulholland with a CGI Jabba for a New Hope's reissue in 1997, a move which invoked the fury of the purists.