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lotesseOkay, is there a novelization somewhere that parses the tactical situation at the beginning of Return of the Jedi? Cuz - you have Luke insinuating the droids into Jabba's household, which seems to work out well, Jabba never actually catches on to that part, but then again what's up with R2 having Luke's lightsaber by the time you get to the execution scene, did he have it all along or did Luke somehow plant it? Lando's in there too, and seems to be working in tandem with Leia - but how much are they working with Luke? Leia and Lando clearly thought they were going to be able to sneak Han out without getting caught - and how does Jabba get the jump on them, anyway? - so Luke shouldn't have been planning on coming in at all; I always did get the impression that his entry onto the scene was a last-hope kind of deal, when everything's gone wrong Luke comes swooping in. Leia's surprised to see him; did she tell him what she and Lando were doing, or did he only find out once it all went to hell?
The reading that I like best, I think, is the one where the right and left hands are having some trouble communicating with each other - as we know they are, Luke is sitting on some major secrets, there's got to be some tension there, even in that last scene from ESB they're sweet together but there's also this closed-offness to them, a distance; compare the deleted scene from earlier in that film, in the medical center on Hoth, where they're warm and light and shiny with each other.
So. Luke suggests planting the droids as part of a long-span information-gathering project, and Leia knows they're there; but she and Lando, impatient, try to pull their con before the intelligence situation is completely clear, and so are unprepared to evade Jabba's internal spynet, leading to the disastrous expose of their attempt. Chewie's been assigned to the Princess, of course, so he's not an independent factor. Whatever communication system Luke has with - presumably R2? - informs him that his sister's gone and gotten herself sex-enslaved, he should maybe do something about that. I think he must plant his saber on R2 when he goes in, as a sensible precaution; of all of them, Luke the Tatooinian would be the least likely to underestimate the extent of Jabba's power and paranoia. Only I can't think when he could have done it. He's unarmed by the time he's fighting the Rancor, but it seems nonsensical that he would have given R2 his Jedi weapon all the way back when he sent the droids to Jabba's palace, especially if he didn't have concrete, immediate plans to go in himself.
If we could understand Chewie it would help - does he tell Han, down in Jabba's cells, that it's all right because Luke's part of the plan, getting caught is just a minor setback? or does he say that Luke's still out there, he's a Jedi Knight now you know, I'm sure he'll come for us when he finds out?
Either way, one of the things that I really like about Leia's bit with the thermal detonator is that it doesn't seem like girls get to pull those kinds of fucked up heroics that often. The droid stuff and the janked music conceal it a bit, but they're a pretty fucked up set by that point: Leia's suicide bombing and Luke's doing Force chokes with a wave of a finger. I have no doubt that the detonator was real, and that she really would have blown them all to hell if she'd been pushed to it. Girl ain't bluffing.
The reading that I like best, I think, is the one where the right and left hands are having some trouble communicating with each other - as we know they are, Luke is sitting on some major secrets, there's got to be some tension there, even in that last scene from ESB they're sweet together but there's also this closed-offness to them, a distance; compare the deleted scene from earlier in that film, in the medical center on Hoth, where they're warm and light and shiny with each other.
So. Luke suggests planting the droids as part of a long-span information-gathering project, and Leia knows they're there; but she and Lando, impatient, try to pull their con before the intelligence situation is completely clear, and so are unprepared to evade Jabba's internal spynet, leading to the disastrous expose of their attempt. Chewie's been assigned to the Princess, of course, so he's not an independent factor. Whatever communication system Luke has with - presumably R2? - informs him that his sister's gone and gotten herself sex-enslaved, he should maybe do something about that. I think he must plant his saber on R2 when he goes in, as a sensible precaution; of all of them, Luke the Tatooinian would be the least likely to underestimate the extent of Jabba's power and paranoia. Only I can't think when he could have done it. He's unarmed by the time he's fighting the Rancor, but it seems nonsensical that he would have given R2 his Jedi weapon all the way back when he sent the droids to Jabba's palace, especially if he didn't have concrete, immediate plans to go in himself.
If we could understand Chewie it would help - does he tell Han, down in Jabba's cells, that it's all right because Luke's part of the plan, getting caught is just a minor setback? or does he say that Luke's still out there, he's a Jedi Knight now you know, I'm sure he'll come for us when he finds out?
Either way, one of the things that I really like about Leia's bit with the thermal detonator is that it doesn't seem like girls get to pull those kinds of fucked up heroics that often. The droid stuff and the janked music conceal it a bit, but they're a pretty fucked up set by that point: Leia's suicide bombing and Luke's doing Force chokes with a wave of a finger. I have no doubt that the detonator was real, and that she really would have blown them all to hell if she'd been pushed to it. Girl ain't bluffing.
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Date: 2014-03-23 05:03 am (UTC)And I distinctly remember the trick with R2 and the saber was a pre-planned bit.
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Date: 2014-03-23 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-23 05:04 am (UTC)Anyway, via the novelization, Luke is definitely pretty fucked up at this point, and feeling really conflicted about his Jedi skills; he's spent a considerable amount of time in Ben Kenobi's empty hut with nobody but Artoo for company, trying to figure out how to make a new lightsaber with nothing but meditation and some really old notes Kenobi left behind. He finishes the new saber, tests it, and then pretty much immediately gives it to Artoo.
I'm not actually sure about the question of how much Luke and Leia/Lando are coordinating; the impression I have as someone who knows the novelization better than the movie is that they were... communicating, but not exactly working together? Like, Luke thinks Leia and Lando's plan is awful, and also they aren't relying on the Force enough, so he plans around them failing and needing Jedi rescue; Leia and Lando think Luke's plan is awful, and relies too much on the Force, so she plans assuming he'll be useless. I'm not actually sure that's canon though, it's been awhile since I've re-read and it might just be headcanon; it makes sense to me, though - Leia and Lando and Chewie all have experience pulling this kind of shenanigans, and Luke really doesn't have anything but space wizardry on his side.
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Date: 2014-03-23 05:33 am (UTC)I am usually frustrated by the way Lucas leverages the Force, especially wrt Leia; because it always seems to come down to more Force/less Force, rather than the human elements that I think would have been more logically predominant in communications breakdowns between that group at that moment - Luke is disconnected, Leia formed a romantic attachment to Han while he was away, Leia's way too intense and obviously not eating, is Luke crazy? post-traumatic? how much does Leia believe in the Force, rather than in the Jedi as a historically strong sociopolitical power? She calls on Ben, but as a general not as a Jedi.
It makes a lot more emotional sense to me that the tension point would be Leia wanting to go in right away, damn the torpedoes, and Luke being patient and quiet and withdrawn, maybe even guilty about his own decision to rush off to Bespin against Yoda's advice, tho I bet he's not telling Leia about that one, either. He's got to be freaking the shit out of her. He freaks the shit out of me with that Force-choke business!
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Date: 2014-03-24 02:39 am (UTC)I read the giving the saber to Artoo as reading in some of his current fucked-up-ness about Jedi stuff? He'd just lost his father's saber to Vader, and and learned who that saber had really belonged too, and he's rethinking a lot of the stuff Kenobi fed that romanticized the Jedi and lightsabers, so he's feeling really ambivalent about it? And making, but then immediately putting it somewhere where he can't use it, but will have it if he really really needs it, it sort of his way of externalizing that?
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Date: 2014-03-23 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-23 01:07 pm (UTC)I'm more curious what the hell George Lucas thought he was filming in the first place, yanno?