Star Wars: 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Jabba The Hutt
3. His Original Concepts Looked Very Different
Like many of Star Wars' more outlandish characters, Jabba went through several iterations of concept and design before the filmmakers arrived at the corpulent slug/worm/amphibian of cinematic history. Some of the first concepts for Return of the Jedi included a much more agile, apelike creature and a chunky four-armed humanoid in a Speedo.
The earliest art of Jabba is from well before Return of the Jedi, in the comic book adaptation of A New Hope released by Marvel. Here he is a much more standard, humanoid-with-a-weird-head kind of alien, based on a tusked, bristly inhabitant of the cantina scene.
Jabba's concept art settled on a grotesquely bulbous monster, and a more recognisable Jabba quickly took shape. His hookah was always a part of this design, because even from the start Jabba the Hutt was all about that vape life.