A series as long-lived as Star Wars is bound to have seen its fair share of behind-the-scenes features over the years, and yet it somehow keeps giving fans new perspectives on everything from its storied history. That's where a new book comes in, compiling years of interviews with stars from the series as a one-stop destination for fans looking to delve deeper into the franchise they love. Ok, so maybe it's not technically new stuff, but it's definitely a lot easier to parse now, take for example a few interviews discussing some lesser-known details around Jabba's Palace from 1983's almost slightly more feminist Return of the Jedi.
Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga: The Official Collector's Edition is a new book from the makers of Star Wars Insider magazine, and aside from an impressive collection of colons in its title, it also features tons of interviews with the stars of the movies taken from the publication's own archives. Having just released on Star Wars Day 2021, it collects some great insider perspectives that some might not have otherwise gotten. One such focus involves a look at Jabba the Hutt's imposing palace as seen at the beginning of the original trilogy's third film, and several of the movie's stars had some interesting insights.
"The set seemed so claustrophobic and dark," said C-3PO actor Anthony Daniels during a group interview, "which wasn’t helped by the incense used to give 'atmosphere' —a kind of nightclub fog." He went on to mention how Carrie Fisher, playing Leia in disguise, had it even worse with her bulky bounty hunter costume. It's kind of ironic to hear, considering how Fisher has talked for many years about how uncomfortable her famous metal bikini was during the majority of the Jabba's Palace scenes. It's ironic, and also a little sad. That's a lot of discomfort to go through before a movie even reaches its halfway point. Just one more unfortunate aspect of how the Star Wars movies handled Leia's character. Hopefully, her Endor outfit was a bit more accommodating.
Director Richard Marquand had an interesting perspective as well, speaking about the Jabba puppet itself. "As a director, you are talking to Jabba himself," he said. "You’re telling him what to do." This makes sense due to how the puppet was operated. Several puppeteers, including Toby Philpott, Dave Barclay, and Mike Edmonds, worked as a single unit to bring the character to life, so it was probably easier for Marquand to simply address the puppet as the actor than to single out a specific operator. "We always worked Jabba as a unified being, an actor," said Philpott, "which meant we were continuously practicing our coordination."
Fisher also had an even more unfortunate experience than many realize, especially due to how particularly disgusting the Jabba puppet was (probably even more so than the Resident Evil Village characters as puppets). At one point, when Jabba was intimidating Leia by showing her his gross, slimy tongue, Philpott was in charge of that particular aspect. Since he, unfortunately, couldn't see much of what he was doing, he just did what the director asked. "Only much later was I told I had stuck that horrible, gloop-covered tongue right in Carrie Fisher's ear!" he said with a laugh. "I was not actually a damsel in distress, I was a distressing damsel!" Fisher said in response.
The book contains plenty of juicy behind-the-scenes talk like this. It looks to be a nice read for long-time fans of the series, especially those who enjoy learning about how things are made and done. For those interested, Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga: The Official Collector's Edition is currently available in most stores where books are sold.
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is now available on Disney Plus.
Source: StarWars.com