Jabba Desilijic Tiure, better known as Jabba the Hutt (/ˈdʒɑːbə/ JAH-bə), is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. Initially performed by Declan Mulholland as a human in the original Star Wars film, Jabba first appeared properly in the 1983 film Return of the Jedi as a large, slug-like crime lord of the Hutt species. In the film, Jabba was voiced by Larry Ward and depicted by a one-ton puppet operated by several puppeteers. In 1997, Jabba's deleted scene was restored in the original Star Wars film's Special Edition – retitled A New Hope – where Mulholland was replaced with computer-generated imagery. Jabba made his third film appearance in the 1999 prequel film The Phantom Menace, with Jabba being credited as portraying "himself". Jabba was voiced by Scott Schumann in The Phantom Menace, while his voice actor in A New Hope is unknown.

Jabba lives in a palace on the desert planet Tatooine. He places a bounty on the smuggler Han Solo, and sends bounty hunters to capture him. After Darth Vader freezes Solo in carbonite, the bounty hunter Boba Fett delivers the frozen Solo to Jabba, who puts him on display in his palace. Solo's friends then save him, but are captured by Jabba; he enslaves Princess Leia and plans to feed Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, and Solo to a Sarlacc. After they enter to the Sail Barge, Leia strangles Jabba to death, and the group destroy the Sail Barge and escape from Tatooine.

George Lucas wrote and directed Star Wars, which was released in 1977. The script included a scene in which the smuggler Han Solo negotiates with Jabba about a payment he owes him. The scene was meant to give Solo the motivation to transport dangerous passengers for a high fare. It was also meant to explain why Solo was imprisoned in the following film, The Empire Strikes Back.

In a 1985 interview, Lucas said that he originally imagined Jabba as a furry creature that resembled a Wookiee. By the time he completed the Star Wars screenplay, Jabba had evolved into a fat, slug-like creature with a gaping mouth and eyes on extended feelers. When filming Jabba's scene, Declan Mulholland served as a stand-in for the crime lord. Lucas planned to replace Mulholland in post-production with an animated creature. Lucas ultimately cut the scene due to budget and time constraints, and because he felt it did not contribute to the film's plot. Additionally, problems with focus pulling on the footage he had captured rendered it unusable until the advent of digital manipulation allowed it to be salvageable. According to Paul Blake, who plays the bounty hunter Greedo, his character's scene was added to Star Wars after Lucas decided to cut the scene with Jabba.

Although Jabba did not appear in Star Wars, he is mentioned in the film and its first sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. He finally appeared in the second sequel, Return of the Jedi (1983). His appearance is similar to the way he was described in the Star Wars script: He is a large, slug-like creature with a wide mouth. Before Lucas settled on this design, he considered other versions of the character. At various points, Jabba resembled an ape, a worm and a snail. One design made Jabba appear too human—almost like a Fu Manchu character. Nilo Rodis-Jamero, the costume designer for Return of the Jedi, said he had envisioned Jabba as a refined, intelligent man resembling Orson Welles.

After an initial design was approved, further design work was done by Phil Tippett, the film's visual effects artist. He based Jabba's body structure and reproductive system on the anatomy of annelid worms. He modeled Jabba's head on that of a snake, complete with bulbous, slit-pupilled eyes and a mouth that opens wide enough to swallow large prey. He gave Jabba's skin a moist, amphibian quality.

The next task was to create the Jabba puppet, a process which took three months and cost $500,000. Stuart Freeborn and the Industrial Light & Magic Creature Shop designed the one-ton puppet, while John Coppinger sculpted its latex, clay, and foam pieces. The puppet had its own makeup artist and required three puppeteers to operate, making it one of the largest puppets ever used in a film. The puppeteers included David Barclay, Toby Philpott, and Mike Edmonds, who were members of Jim Henson's Muppet group. Barclay operated the right arm and mouth, while Philpott controlled the left arm, head, and tongue. Edmonds was responsible for the movement of Jabba's tail. The character's eyes and face were operated by radio control. Lucas complained about the difficulty of moving the massive puppet around the set. He was also disappointed by its appearance, later stating that Jabba would have been a computer-generated character if the required technology had existed at the time.

Jabba's voice was provided by Larry Ward, who was uncredited in the film. A heavy, booming quality was given to Ward's voice by pitching it an octave lower than normal and processing it through a subharmonic generator. Jabba's burping sounds were provided by sound engineer Howie Hammerman. A soundtrack of wet, slimy sound effects was recorded to accompany the movement of Jabba's limbs and mouth. The film's composer, John Williams, arranged a musical theme for Jabba that is played on a tuba. Williams later turned the theme into a symphonic piece which he performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra. The musicologist Gerald Sloan said the Jabba theme "blends the monstrous and the lyrical". According to the film historian Laurent Bouzereau, Jabba's strangulation by Leia was inspired by a scene from The Godfather (1972), in which the obese character Luca Brasi is garroted by an assassin.