According to The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, designing the fight scene on Jabba the Hutt's sail barge was one of the most difficult things for George Lucas to do. He had to find a way to show that a lot of different things were happening at the same time. Leia had to kill Jabba and Lando had to free Han and Chewbacca. Meanwhile, Luke was busy confronting over a dozen of Jabba’s hired guns – including the notorious Boba Fett. Of course, all of that was happening under the threat of falling into one of the most terrifying and mysterious creatures in the galaxy.
The difficulties of that scene meant that some things didn’t get as much attention as they could have. That was actually one of the reasons that Boba Fett ended up inside of the sarlacc – because nothing else could be added to the already-complicated sequence. Another thing that didn’t get a lot of detail was the sarlacc itself. Besides a few lines of dialogue, no one knew much about the monster that lived inside of the Pit of Carkoon. With almost four decades of additional material and the recent release of The Book of Boba Fett, fans now know a lot more about the creature. So, here’s a rundown of some of the weirdest parts about the sarlacc’s anatomy.
Sarlaccs Torture Their Victims Physically and Mentally
The sarlacc was, introduced in Return of the Jedi as one of Jabba’s favorite execution methods. The sadistic, disgusting slug enjoyed dropping his captives into the depths of the sarlacc because it wasn’t a quick and painless death. C-3PO said that Han Solo would be “slowly digested over a thousand years.” That might have seemed like hyperbole at the moment, but it was actually pretty accurate. According to the Star Wars Visual Dictionary, the sarlacc would absorb “the intellect of its victims, and [was] capable of sustaining their torment for thousands of years.” This means that the sarlacc wouldn't just kill its food. It would give its victims an unusually long life so they could experience physical and mental torment while being digested by burning, corrosive acids.
Sarlaccs Don’t Have Heads – Just a Really Strong Tongue
In the original version of Return of the Jedi, the sarlacc was just a pit with teeth. However, Lucas must have thought that it didn’t look alive enough because he added tentacles and a maw to the monster in the special edition. That has led to some confusion. The newer part of the sarlacc that protrudes out of the Pit of Carkoon isn't the monster’s head – it's an extremely strong tongue surrounded by a beak. Sarlaccs don’t have humanoid heads at all, just a mouth at the end of a body.
Sarlaccs Don’t Always Live In Holes in the Ground
Fully mature sarlaccs find a place to hole up in, but they don't reach maturity until they are 30,000 years old and nearly 100 meters long. Up until that point, sarlaccs roam around and hunt like any other carnivorous, tentacled creature. That makes sense because sarlaccs share a common ancestry with creatures such as the rathtar, blixus and vixus. Notably, Han Solo and Chewbacca had an encounter with a group of rathtars in The Force Awakens.
Sarlaccs’ Reproduction Process Is Explosive – Literally
For sarlaccs to survive for millennia, they have to have a way to reproduce. This happens before mature sarlaccs burrow into the ground, and it's a particularly explosive occurrence. When a male sarlacc encounters a larger female, it feeds off of the female like a parasite. During that process, the female’s size diminishes, and the male grows until it can no longer do so. At that point, the male bursts, sending thousands of spores into the air. Han and Chewbacca encountered a baby sarlacc named Simpi in the comic Galaxy’s Edge #1.
Sarlaccs’ Innards Can Be Weaponized
One of the reasons that a sarlacc can torment its victims is because of its weak stomach acid. Additionally, that acid can be harvested and weaponized. In the canon comic Life Day #1, Jabba sent Han and Chewbacca to purchase some explosives from a group of Trandoshans. They weren’t just explosives, though. They were corrosive, chemical weapons – bombs lined with acid from the gut of a sedated sarlacc.