The Mandalorian‘s season 2 finale post-credits saw the (brief) return of Jabba the Hutt’s former majordomo, Bib Fortuna, with a veteran Star Wars voice actor taking on the role of the weaselly Twi’lek. Bib Fortuna first appeared in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, where he was played by Scottish actor Michael Carter. When the character returned in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, actor Alan Ruscoe (who played various other aliens in the movies) portrayed Bib Fortuna on-screen, with sound editor Matthew Wood providing the voice – and it’s Wood who returns to the role for The Mandalorian.
Chronologically, Bib Fortuna was first seen in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, as a part of Jabba’s entourage while the Tatooine crime lord was watching over Anakin Skywalker’s pod race. He was last seen during the daring escape from Jabba and the sarlacc pit at the start of Return of the Jedi. Bib Fortuna apparently survived the sail barge’s explosion and, with Jabba having been killed by Leia, the former right-hand man decided to take over his former boss’s role. When Bib appears in The Mandalorian‘s post-credits scene, he’s even committed to his role by packing on quite a few pounds since the last time he was seen.
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Bib Fortuna’s reign ends when Boba Fett and Fennec Shand arrive at Jabba’s palace, killing Bib’s guards and freeing his Twi’lek slave. Bib Fortuna left Boba for dead in the desert after the bounty hunter fell into the sarlacc pit, but Boba has his revenge by killing Bib and taking his place on the throne. Since no other actors are credited, it looks like this is Matthew Wood’s first on-screen appearance in Star Wars after more than two decades voicing many characters across Star Wars movies, TV shows and video games – including, most notably, the villainous cyborg leader General Grievous.
Wood first began working for Lucasfilm in his late teens as a tester for the company’s video game titles, before moving on to join Skywalker Sound, Lucasfilm’s dedicated sound audio department at the Skywalker Ranch. He worked on pioneering technologies such as Sound Droid, which was the first digital audio editing system used in films. Since then Wood has been busy as both a sound editor and voice actor, with his roles including the doomed pod racer Ody Mandrell in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Resistance pilot Ello Asty in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the many battle droids that appear throughout the franchise. In a 2005 interview archived by StarWarsInterviews.com, Wood explained how he unexpectedly ended up being cast in the role of General Grievous for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith:
“Chris Scarabosio, the dialogue editor, and I came up with the way Grievous was supposed to sound and George [Lucas] approved that. Chris said I should try to get the part. I said it was too weird and I couldn’t do it. It was an advantage that I knew what George wanted as I heard him talk to actors about Grievous, so I did give it a try. Chris recorded me and I put the tape under an anonymous name with the rest. I didn’t think about it after that but one day Rick McCallum came up to me and asked if I had the agent’s name of the person whose voice was on a certain tape… my tape. I had all the documentation so that is why he asked me. I thought it was a prank, that he knew it was me and I had screwed up. Then again, he couldn’t know. I was thinking if I had crossed the line but still, I told him it was me.
“He said ‘are you s**tting me?’ He asked me what I wanted him to do. I said he should tell George, so he called George and said it was my voice. George called me then and asked me to come over and record it. It was fun, because I don’t have any shyness around George. I didn’t tell anybody about it. Finally, when the film was printed I told everybody.”
In addition to playing Bib Fortuna in The Mandalorian‘s season 2 finale, Wood is also the supervising sound editor for the show. The post-credits scene brings back the phrase “maclunkey” – Huttese for “this is the end of you” – which was notoriously added into Star Wars: A New Hope for the 2019 Disney+ re-release. “Maclunkey” is now spoken by Greedo during the cantina stand-off with Han Solo, as part of the latest effort to redress the controversy over whether or not Han shot first. As Bib Fortuna, Wood says “maclunkey” to one of his minions when Fennec arrives at Jabba’s palace. Responding to excitement over the return of “maclunkey” on Twitter, Wood joked, “The circle is now complete.”
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