Maximilian "Max" Rebo was a male Ortolan from Orto and a popular Jizz-wailer musician who led the Max Rebo Band. He mainly played the red ball jett organ, which he played with his feet; he and his band often performed for criminals and gangsters.
Maximilian Rebo was born on the cold planet of Orto. At some point Rebo formed a band, called the Max Rebo Band, which would go on to perform Jizz-style music for crime lord Jabba the Hutt. Rebo also had a brother named Azool Phantelle.
Rebo and Azool make their escape from the pursuers.
At some point, Azool swindled several of the inhabitants of the spaceport Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine. The victims mistook Rebo for Azool and began chasing the musician. Rebo then collided with two Imperial stormtroopers while fleeing toward Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina. Before the troopers could punish him for the collision, Azool spotted Rebo while passing on a speeder bike and pulled his brother out of harm's way and onto the bike.
As the pair sped away from the angry stormtroopers and locals, Rebo admonished Azool for his life of crime. He fretted that Jabba the Hutt, who employed Rebo, would punish both brothers for Azool's crimes, as they had taken place within the crime lord's territory. Unconcerned, Azool avoided a missile fired by Boushh, but then Rebo stopped the chase by grabbing Azool's bag of stolen funds and throwing the contents out to those chasing them. Rebo and Azool then got out of the speeder, with Azool saddened when he watched his funds being taken away by the pursuers. Jabba the Hutt then came to both of them, asking Rebo what had occurred. Rebo gave the excuse that Azool had been causing trouble on Jabba's territory, and Azool claimed he had not known that it was Jabba's territory. As a result, Jabba punished Azool by forcing him to be a waiter on the Khetanna.
Max Rebo (right) performing for Jabba the Hutt
In 4 ABY, Rebo and his band performed for Jabba. While performing, they were interrupted by the scream of Jabba's slave dancer Oola as she was dropped into the Hutt's rancor pit below his throne room for defying him which interrupted the band's performance. Later, the band was present when Leia Organa entered the palace disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh. At night, several members of the band accompanied Jabba into hiding as Organa freed the smuggler Han Solo from carbonite.
Max Rebo then traveled aboard Jabba's sail barge, the Khetanna, to the Great Pit of Carkoon, where Solo was to be executed. After Daladit-Chan gave a message to his son, Umpass-stay, to kill Jabba, Rebo had to carry out the task to kill Jabba, using some sort of poison. Max got caught, but got lucky when Luke Skywalker busted into the sail barge, and distracted Jabba. At the end of the day, Max Rebo was alive. The Khetanna was destroyed by Solo and his associates, however, causing the sail barge to explode in flame all over the desert. However, Rebo was able to escape the destruction.
Rebo played at the Sanctuary in Mos Espa during the New Republic Era.
By 9 ABY, the Ortolan came to work in Garsa Fwip's Sanctuary, the cantina operated by the Twi'lek Garsa Fwip during the New Republic Era. At the Sanctuary, Rebo continued to play the red ball jet organ (albeit a new model), and was performing when the cantina was visited by the former bounty hunter and Daimyo of Mos Espa Boba Fett on multiple occasions. Rebo was accompanied by a guitar-strumming Bith and a drum-playing droid. The Pyke Syndicate later bombed the Sanctuary, however, Rebo survived.
Max Rebo first appeared in the 1983 Star Wars film, Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. While at times described as such, Rebo was not a puppet but instead a costume; performer Simon Williamson needed to sit within the suit to play the character. Williamson got the part after the character he was originally set to play, Sic-Six, was cut from the film. Shown the Rebo costume as an alternative part he could claim by Phil Tippett, Williamson described seeing Rebo as a "blue vision of loveliness" and felt a great need to play him. The 2016 young reader's Canon reference book The Amazing Book of Star Wars misspells his last name as "Reebo."
Rebo's design in the non-canon 2022 video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga re-uses the design for his minifigure in the Star Wars Legends-era LEGO Classic Star Wars set 75020 Jabba's Sail Barge. As a result, the character is depicted with a pair of arms instead of only legs, in line with Ortolans from the Legends continuity, as opposed to Canon Ortolans which possess only legs.
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