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The Force Feature, exploring the many worlds of Star Wars, in the imagination and in real life!So this may be the start of me pushing the limits a bit, but Jabba the Hutt freaks me out of a few reasons.
And the strange thing is, he didn’t freak me out in the least bit when I was a kid. Sure, I thought it was gross when he pulled Leia over to him and started wagging his tongue at her, but that’s as far as it went in my head.
Now that I’m an adult, the scenes with Jabba have taken on an entirely different and rather disturbing dimension. But before I get there, let me explain a little something.
I grew up in suburban Los Angeles, practically urban, so I was not especially close to nature when I was a kid. My boys think nothing of catching and releasing worms, crickets, grasshoppers, stick bugs, salamanders, frogs, toads, and would go after the snakes, too, if I didn’t draw the line there. No poisonous snakes where we live, in case you were wondering. Me, I had to get over my initial nervousness about it – which sounds strange and ridiculous now, but there you go. The boys made it easy for me.
But when I think of Jabba the Hutt these days, who’s essentially a gigantically fat, meat-eating worm, I get the willies. I mean, I’ll try to put this politely, but where and how is he going to the bathroom? And what’s coming out of him, since he’s not eating a worm-like diet? Ewwwww! And mind you, I’ve never been inclined to give a single thought to the restroom necessities of any other Star Wars character. It just pops into my brain when it concerns Jabba, and I have to just go “Uuuuggggghhh!” and shake it off.
The other thing that really, really disturbs me starts with the sequence where Oola the Twi’lek performs her last dance. Incidentally, the Expanded Universe says Oola had trained in one of the greatest dance schools on Ryloth, but the rest of her backstory is just pitiful and sad. Anyway, it wasn’t until I’d come of age, let’s say, that I realized exactly what was going through Jabba’s mind when he started yanking on Oola’s chain. And, good grief, I can’t think of anything more awful and disgusting! I mean, he’s a worm, how is this even possible? Arrrghgh!
So then it gets even more terrible when he captures Princess Leia, and I’m about to utter a sentence you’ll probably never hear from any other man on the face of the earth. I almost hate seeing Leia in the slave girl bikini costume, because I don’t want Jabba to get the same idea about her as with Oola. Which he does, because he pulls her over on the sail barge and says that soon, she’ll come to appreciate him, and as an adult, I’m thinking, oh good Lord, please no! Actually, what’s going through my head is more profanity laced, but I’ll spare you.
As you can imagine, then, one of THE most satisfying moments in Return of the Jedi for me is Leia choking the life out of that slimy piece of worm-ridden filth. HUGE sigh of relief when she takes him out. And when Artoo cuts her chain, that’s the moment in the movie I’m able to start appreciating the costume the way most of us men who saw Jedi at a formative period in their lives still do.
If Lucas persists in thinking of the Star Wars movies more of a movie series for kids than for adults, then the Jabba scenes are even more unsettling.
So you can imagine my additional level of dismay when Lucas put in the cut scene with Jabba during the Special Edition of Star Wars, aka A New Hope. Or seeing him in The Phantom Menace. Or in the Clone Wars movie. You know, I don’t say this sort of thing too often, but in Jabba’s case, I’m truly relieved that he’d dead and burned in the sail barge self-destruction. Honestly, I wouldn’t even wish him on the Sarlacc. Not even the Pit deserves to swallow that kind of fate.
Star Wars Fun Fact
Surprising and little known Star Wars tidbits, usually related to today’s Force Feature.Did you ever watch the Saturday morning cartoons Star Wars: Droids and Star Wars: Ewoks? I got a DVD of the Ewoks cartoons out of the library a year or so ago, and it made my then 5-year-old laugh, which is never a bad thing. I mention it because on this date in 1985, the two cartoons debuted together, and a bonus fun fact: Stewart Copeland from the Police performed and co-wrote the Droids theme song, “Trouble Again”!
Life on “Tweet”-ooine
A featured dispatch from the Star Wars Twitterverse!Killed #yoda i did #starwars pic.twitter.com/WzmerGLdeW
— lucky (@_1lucky) August 24, 2014
Star Wars Swag Bag
So many fun, quirky, and awesome ways to bring Star Wars into your daily life!Boba Fett Varsity Jacket – click the pic for details!
Trivia Time!
Test your knowledge of the Star Wars universe!Yesterday’s answer: Aunt Beru
Today’s question: What type of machines did Uncle Owen have installed on his farm’s south ridge?