Mardji was an Asian elephant who portrayed the banthas in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. She was transported from Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, California, to a Star Wars shooting location in Death Valley, California. There, she was outfitted with a bantha costume, made up of layers of fur and a lightweight horned headpiece. Though Mardji was a well-trained elephant, she had difficulty adjusting to her costume, often trying to remove it while the cameras were rolling. Since the filmmakers could only afford a single dressed-up elephant, the scene where Luke Skywalker spotted two banthas side by side was realized through optical compositing.
Mardji being transformed into a bantha
During the production of Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, footage of Mardji was taken by a team including special effects artists Dennis Muren, Phil Tippett, and Jon Berg. This footage was used as a reference for how the AT-ATs should move.
Mardji spent the rest of her life as a Marine World attraction. She was euthanized in November 1995, after suffering from chronic bone inflammation.
Several years after her death, she inspired the use of dog actors for the Corellian hounds of the 2018 Star Wars Anthology film Solo: A Star Wars Story, as revealed in The Art of Solo: A Star Wars Story.