There's this tweet thread I've been wanting to do for quite a while, but I know it's going to be really long and I just never been able to block out the time for it. Still, everyone is home right now, so it's a good time for a long talk.
Maybe I'll just go ahead and start this now and add to it over how many ever days it takes to complete. I may need the extra time to get thoughts together anyway, as it's quite a big topic and I don't really know how to start.
Anyway, here's the topic: What exactly was Luke's plan to rescue Han Solo at the beginning of Return of the Jedi?
The more I dive into this, this less sense it makes. I honestly don't even know where to start with it. I guess I'll start with this question: Did everything go according to plan or not? However you answer that, it doesn't make sense.
I guess the next question to ask is "Why?" I mean why not just walk in with lightsaber in hand and go "I'm a Jedi. Gimme Han!"?
I guess we're supposed to accept that Jabba -- who canonically Han stepped on the tail of just for fun -- is way too powerful for that so you have to be extra double sneaky. Convoluted sneaky even.
So where to start with this plan? I guess try to figure what was the opening move. As far as I can tell, the first thing they did was get Lando to pose as a guard for Jabba.
This is the only thing they did that directly makes sense and leaves no questions for me. It also amounts to absolutely nothing because by the end the only thing Lando did was need to get saved by a blind Han.
So what's next? I guess Chewie disappears to pretend he's been captured by Leia posing as a bounty hunter (C3P0 remarks on how Chewie is missing, and we can assume he wasn't let in on any of the planning). I don't really get that, but we'll revisit.
Next, Luke puts his newly crafted lightsaber in R2. Why? Again, I guess we have to assume that Jabba is just so powerful Luke knows he needs to be extra crafty and only have his weapon available when it will be a surprise.
So now C3P0 and R2 go to deliver a message to Jabba. This is where it starts to get really confusing, because the message is "Hey, I'll give you these droids for Han."
So, a lot of questions here. Did Luke think there was a chance Jabba would say, "Oh cool. Great trade. I'll keep the droids. Take Han."? If that did happen, what then? Now he lost his droids and his lightsaber. Does he have to go back and rescue them?
I mean, I don't see how this part of the plan wasn't anything other than a step backwards. I mean, best case, he now has two droids to rescue from Jabba. What actually happened is now he has Han and the droids to rescue. But he has a crouching Tiger, hidden lightsaber, I guess.
Now comes Leia dressed as a bounty hunter. And it gets even more confusing.
So, Leia hunter really plays the part -- even threaten to blow everyone up if she doesn't get paid enough -- and gives Chewie over to Jabba. So, if you're keeping track, we've gone from needing to rescue Han to needing to rescue Han, R2, C3P0, and Chewie.
So Leia hunter sneaks in at night to unfreeze Han and rescue him -- in front of everyone. I mean everyone is in the room and she's just assuming they're asleep or drunk or something. Is she trying to get caught?
Let's say she isn't. Let's say she unfreezes Han and gets him out. Now you've gone from needing to rescue Han to needing to rescue R2, C3P0, and Chewie. Again, a big step backwards.
But if that's if things went to what (presumably) was the plan. Instead, Jabba wasn't drunk or asleep -- can't outsmart that guy. So now we've gone from needing to rescue frozen Han to needing to rescue blind Han plus R2, C3P0, Chewie, and Leia.
And, of course, this whole time Lando is just standing there, maybe reporting back to Luke. "Oh no! They're all captured!" or "They're all captured... exactly as we planned!" or "They're all captured... even the ones we didn't plan to be captured."
So now comes Luke, the Jedi, who tries to Jedi mind trick Jabba into giving him back all his friends. Which brings the question: Did he think that might actually work? Because, if so, why not open with that?
I prefer digital these days, but DVD is still our preferred format for road trips (which one day we will have again) so we need DVDs for anything the kids will watch.
My 4yo daughter’s ranking of Star Wars characters: 1. Rey 2. Ben Solo 3. Leia 4. Darth Vader 5. Anakin (really? also, redundant) 6. Obi-Wan 7. Finn 8. Ashoka Tano
