1.36 t2,990 lb
Jabba the Hutt weighs 1,358 kg, about 2,994 lb. Unusually, both Star Wars continuities agree: DK’s Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know (2015) gives that figure in today’s canon, and Scholastic’s Head-to-Head Tag Teams (2011) gave it in Legends. The puppet that played him in Return of the Jedi weighed about one ton.
| Jabba in canon and LegendsAbsolutely Everything You Need to Know (2015); Head-to-Head Tag Teams (2011) | 1.36 t2,990 lb |
|---|---|
| Return of the Jedi puppet (1983)About one ton, “over 2,000 pounds” per ScreenCrush; not an exact weighing | 907 kg2,000 lb |
The films never weigh Jabba. His weight comes from tie-in books. Wookieepedia’s canon article gives 1,358 kg and cites Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, a DK reference book from 2015. Its Legends article, which covers the stories published before Disney reset the timeline in 2014, gives the same 1,358 kg from Star Wars: Head-to-Head Tag Teams, a 2011 Scholastic book by Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo.
His size is better documented. StarWars.com’s Databank lists him at 3.9 m long, about 12 ft 10 in, and DK’s Star Wars Life Size (2025) adds that he stands 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) tall, about the height of an average man.
In Return of the Jedi, Jabba was a real puppet, one of the largest ever used in a film. Phil Tippett designed him, and makeup supervisor Stuart Freeborn’s team built him in three months for about $500,000. The finished puppet weighed roughly one ton. Inside was a fibreglass shell on springs, mounted on an industrial turntable, with airbags and latex skin layered over the outside to shape his belly.
Three puppeteers worked it from inside: David Barclay ran the right arm and mouth, Toby Philpott the left arm, head and tongue, and Mike Edmonds the tail, while the eyes were radio-controlled from outside. Philpott recalled spending whole days inside for weeks of filming, watching a tiny monitor. George Lucas complained about how hard the massive puppet was to move around the set.
Jabba was meant to appear in the original 1977 Star Wars, but the scene was cut. On set he was played by Declan Mulholland, a human actor in a shaggy coat, whom Lucas planned to replace with a creature later. For the 1997 Special Edition, the effects team replaced Mulholland with a computer-generated Jabba: five shots that took more than a year. Because Harrison Ford had walked behind Mulholland, Han Solo now steps on Jabba’s tail. The shot was improved again for the 2004 DVD, and Jabba was CGI in The Phantom Menace (1999) too.
It is on the light side. Bodies are close to the density of water, so 1,358 kg is about 1.36 cubic metres. Spread over a 3.9 m body, that is the volume of a tube only about 67 cm wide from end to end. Jabba is far bulkier than that at the front and tapers to a thin tail.
Our rough estimate: treat him as a cone 3.9 m long and 1.5 m across at the thick end. That holds about 2.3 cubic metres, or roughly 2.3 tonnes of water, and still about 2.1 tonnes if he were made entirely of fat, which is a little lighter than water. So the official figure is plausible only if he is slimmer than he looks on screen.
About 1.36 metric tonnes, or roughly 1.5 US tons. The official figure is 1,358 kg (2,994 lb).
He is 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in) long according to StarWars.com, and 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) tall according to DK’s Star Wars Life Size.
About one ton (over 2,000 lb). Stuart Freeborn’s team built it in three months for around $500,000, and three puppeteers operated it from inside.
Both. He was a giant puppet in Return of the Jedi (1983), and a computer-generated character in the 1997 Special Edition of A New Hope and in The Phantom Menace (1999).
About 604 years old. Current canon dates his birth to 600 years before the Battle of Yavin and his death on Tatooine to 4 years after it.
Last checked October 2, 2026.
