the ramble dump

So last night Amelia mentioned the similarities between Organza Nousu of Starcustard and Jabba the Hutt of Star Wars. Unfortunately, this is something that had bothered me before, and looking at pictures of Jabba again yesterday, I could match some pretty specific characteristics: aside from being a giant spaceslug thing, there's the leathery skin, the huge mouth, the big orange eyes and even the silly little arms. All I can say, as the one responsible for deciding that Gen's stepparents were going to be fat slugs, is that these similarities were not deliberate.

In my defence I could also point out some differences. The Nousus' leathery skin is described as just like extremely thick walrus hide whereas Jabba's is not. Our slugs don't have slit pupils, and I always imagined their eyes as a very clear, very bright orange, almost cartoony and much more expressive than the sleepy gaze of Jabba. In a similar vein, the Nousu slugs lack Jabba's general slovenly appearance: for all their plumpness and size they're much more mobile, and whereas Jabba's folds of fat collect to form a distinctive belly and head, I always pictured the Nousus as quite linear with wobbly but amorphous flab, for the most part slithering around just like regular slugs, their head only made distinctive from the rest of them by their eyes and mouth. The Nousus' arms are almost ineffectual blackened twig-like things, not fleshy, only added as a way of allowing them to hold a slavekid card catalogue. And finally, as far as I know, Jabba doesn't have teeth.

Not all of these features are made so explicit in the text, because 'more linear than Jabba' is just not something we would have included. I also can't account for exactly how Amelia imagines the Nousus (she might have different ideas of how they compare), but now that we've both become conscious of the unintentional similarities, although nobody else has mentioned it, we felt it was probably a good idea to set the record straight just in case. Back when we started writing Starcustard and I put these slugs in, I hadn't seen any Star Wars film but The Phantom Menace. The same is still true. Reading up on it recently, it turns out that Jabba made an appearance in that film too, but honestly I don't think it was memorable enough even to be a subconscious influence.

In fact, I have an amusing story about my ignorance of Jabba the Hutt. And...well, ignorance in general, too. As I told Amelia last night...

Chris: to be honest, until recently i got him confused with atilla the hun anyway
plaid: ha
plaid: that's awesome.
Chris: i was actually surprised to find he was fictional
plaid: really?
plaid: what a strange kid you are.
Chris: and then weeks later it clicked: wait, he's real! but he has a different name!
plaid: heh
Chris: and then i thought, 'ah, poo. that's very similar to organza.'
Chris: 'but i was not to know!'
Chris: 'i shall not mention it.'
plaid: heh. ah well. no worries.
plaid: jabba the hut never wore fake eyelashes or [spoiler omitted].
Chris: no doubt a thousand million people out there will not believe that story because, like, EVERYONE knows jabba the hutt
Chris: but i didn't!
Chris: heh
plaid: heh.

It's true. And it's a shame that there's such a similarity, because we don't want it to seem like we copied anyone. I made Gen's stepparents into fat, horrible slugs because it seemed appropriate: Gen's stepparents were supposed to be rich and horrible and giant slugs sort of personified this. No doubt George Lucas arrived at the idea of Jabba along similar lines. We could always go back and change it, of course, but then I don't think Organza would still be Organza. So a slug she remains. And we are entirely innocent.

Labels: alien conversations, films, i am the ramblemaster, starcustard

# posted by Chris @ 11:32 AM