
We Dare You to Explain Luke’s Plan to Rescue Han in ‘Return of the Jedi’ - jmadsen
https://uproxx.com/movies/what-was-lukes-plan-star-wars-return-of-the-jedi/2/
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combatentropy
Luke's plan was to destroy Jabba the Hut.

Jabba had been chasing Han since before _A New Hope_. If Luke just were to
break Han out, then Han would be back in the same thicket he was before:
running from Jabba. The group was tired of that.

The plan is rough, yes, but in a confident way: "If we just get us all inside
the palace, it will be like planting dynamite."

Was it dishonest then, for Luke first to ask Jabba nicely? No, I don't think
so. If Jabba sincerely gave up Han, then that means that Jabba's heart would
have changed and would no longer be chasing Han. Therefore both goals would
have been reached without blood (free Han and end the hunt). I don't think
Luke counted on this. But even though Luke had a plan B, the chance presented
to Jabba was real.

~~~
ovao
I like the explanation, but here's where I get hung up on it: at what point
did Luke — in his collective scheming with the gang — inform Leia that she'd
_probably_ be put in a bikini and licked upon by a slug gangster if anything
went even slightly wrong? Or was Leia in Jabba-bondage part of Luke's plan all
along, and he is, in reality, just kind of an inconsiderate dick?

~~~
_emacsomancer_
Relatedly, at what point did George Lucas inform Carrie Fisher of the same?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
From what I remember reading, this was Carrie Fisher's idea.

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OrganicMSG
Luke was never meant to enter. He was supposed to be the getaway pilot.

Lando, R2D2 and C3PO are supposed to break out Chewie, fetch Leia and Han,
then all escape and get picked up by Luke.

Luke is just winging it after everybody missed the rendezvous, as Leia
underestimated just how long Jabba and his entourage could wait silently
behind a curtain.

The lightsaber was carried in by R2D2 as a backup weapon for Leia, who also
came up with the plan.

~~~
saagarjha
Leia, who has no training with a lightsaber?

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OrganicMSG
She's got grenades and blasters down, so I suspect she could work out where
the pointy end goes.

~~~
saagarjha
Well, those aren’t civilized weapons, are they?

~~~
cgriswald
Well, her civilization was wiped out a couple films prior...

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saagarjha
Alderaan is a peaceful planet, so it’s not a great place to learn how to use
weapons anyways…

~~~
qbrass
It was a front for a terrorist organization, which is why the Empire freed
every molecule of the planet with their liberation ray.

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jimmytucson
This sounds like a question Sci-fi Stack Exchange would make mince meat out
of. For example: [https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/182014/why-does-
th...](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/182014/why-does-the-death-
star-have-a-trash-compactor)

But seriously, little inconsistencies like these make me think Star Wars was
just meant to be a kids’ movie and not a sacred document to be handed down and
analyzed by generations like the Tanakh or something.

~~~
michaelchisari
_Star Wars was just meant to be a kids’ movie and not a sacred document_

I saw The Last Jedi, had a great time, and came home to find Star Wars fans
apoplectic about it, picking apart all kinds of things ("how does rey know how
to swim?", "how does leia survive space?", etc). The original trilogy would
never survive similar scrutiny.

I went to see a kids movie about space wizards, and that's what I got. It was
fun.

~~~
discoursism
Obviously, everyone is entitled to enjoy what they want, but this movie was
difficult for me, even by Star Wars standards. If we can just destroy entire
enemy fleets by jumping to lightspeed with one ship, why are not all battles
fought that way. Also, why couldn't the captain leave and have the computer
pilot the ship?

Maybe it's just that the original trilogy slipped in to me before I got old
enough to where I think about such things. Maybe it is a double standard. But
I don't feel like it is. And that's all I have to go on.

But, I don't begrudge you enjoying the movie! Wish I felt the same.

~~~
krapp
> If we can just destroy entire enemy fleets by jumping to lightspeed with one
> ship, why are not all battles fought that way.

For the same reason naval battles in the real world weren't always fought by
ramming ships into other ships. Ships are expensive, hyperdrives are
expensive, and more valuable as ships than as ballistic mass. It would be a
waste of resources for it to become a common tactic.

It was a lucky gamble that paid off.

>Maybe it's just that the original trilogy slipped in to me before I got old
enough to where I think about such things

The OT is just as ridiculous. The trench run on the Death Star makes no sense
outside of the context of the World War 2 film it was lifted from, no one in
their right mind would design AT-ATs with such a high and vulnerable center of
gravity, stormtrooper armor clearly does nothing against teddy bears and small
rocks, spaceships _bank_ and _make noises_ in space, etc. Even lightsabers are
just "cool laser swords" and metaphors for "space samurai" but don't make a
lot of sense as weapons in a universe with telekinesis and blasters. Actual
samurai weren't stupid enough to use their katanas if they had spears, bows
and eventually guns available, yet I don't recall ever seeing a Jedi sniper,
or the lightsaber version of a naginata.

Sound military tactics and plausible design were _never_ really a thing in
Star Wars.

~~~
science4sail
Ramming (or the threat thereof) is very much a real-world tactic:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_ship)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellburners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellburners)

~~~
krapp
It's a tactic, but it isn't used exclusively, and when it has been used
regularly, it tends not to be more effective than conventional warfare.

The premise that because hyperspace ramming works, it should render all other
forms of warfare in the Star Wars universe obsolete seems like nitpicking to
me. Of course it works. It seems to be consistent with physics in the Star
Wars universe - ships do travel through and interact with physical space while
entering and exiting hyperspace, and collisions with realspace objects do
occur (see Han Solo mentioning the dangers of flying "right through a star" in
ANH.)

So if the tactic works in universe, but why isn't it used all the time?
Because throwing starships at each other and risking the loss of your own
personnel and equipment is a desperate and potentially suicidal tactic and
_not doing that_ is almost always a better idea. Far more things can possibly
go wrong than can go right.

Plus, once it becomes a regular tactic, countermeasures will get developed to
take it into account - the enemy will disperse their command and control
capabilities into multiple smaller ships or attempt to engage from a greater
distance or whatever. So despite being wasteful, it's also short-sighted.

Notwithstanding the _real_ answer being that it wouldn't be as interesting to
watch ships just kamikaze one another at lightspeed.

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farnsworthy
It was like the idea behind a lot of startups: "We're gonna bring a lot of
really talented people together in the same space to collaborate, and just see
what happens."

In _another_ galaxy far, far away, the palace ended up as .jabba, a trendy
coworking cafe. You had Boba Fett hacking away in the corner on his space-food
delivery startup (bounty hunting's the day job), jawas on their ridesharing
service (can't ever understand the damn drivers), C-3PO his AI blockchain
chatbot, etc.

~~~
AlimJaffer
Who are the VC's? Emperor Palapatine and the Siths?

~~~
dec0dedab0de
jaba would be the VC, the empire would be the large corporations aquihiring

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xapata
I always assumed they were there independently. Oddly it hadn't occurred to me
that Luke, Leia, and Lando might have tried to coordinate.

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thegreatcosmo
I'll do one better and explain how and why disney saves Luke in episode 9.

How: Time travel

Why: Money

~~~
daodedickinson
Yep, they just added time travel to the Star Wars universe with the Rebels
cartoon.

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IgorPartola
They did coordinate. It does not make any sense that they wouldn’t after the
ending of Empire.

Lando was not going to rescue Han. He was there just in case they needed
backup.

Leia was going in to unfreeze Han. When they needed to get away quickly, they
couldn’t carry him frozen, and he needed time to come to after being unfrozen.
My guess is that they planned to hide out until Luke came in, or Leia planned
to go “well I don’t know who unfroze him. Probably Chewy, but definitely not
me, I am just a bounty hunter.” Getting caught was not a part of the plan.

The droids came in to sneak in the lightsaber. Luke knew they weren’t enough
to pay for Han. Jabba would have never accepted that.

The plan for Luke was to mind trick Jabba. If that didn’t work, it was to grab
his lightsaber and fuck shit up. He got caught because Leia got caught. If
Leia was still set up as an undercover bounty hunter, and R2D2 was close by,
he could have just started slicing and dicing. Instead he had to fight the
Rancor.

In the end, it was sheer luck that Jabba was doing the typical villain thing
instead of just shooting them on the spot. To be fair, he clearly had a
weakness for being theatrical. That’s why he kept Han frozen.

But. Star Wars is full of ret conning by fans and by Lucas. None of this crap
was thought through before filming. Well not a lot at least. I believe the
basic plot was, but details were not. Like I don’t think that Lando’s
character existed before ANH was filmed. Which does drive me kinda nuts
because people hail SW as such a complete universe. In reality, Lucas did a
lot of just random stuff in the first three movies and then it had to become
canon, sometimes through really crazy explanations. See the gaffe with parsecs
being a unit of distance and how what makes the Falcon so fast is it’s
navigational computer (a detail that was never mentioned in any movies for any
ship, including the Falcon), and not because they screwed up how measurements
of space and time work to sound cool.

~~~
krapp
To be fair, I think the parsec line was supposed to be intentional. Han was
making up some obvious nonsense and wanted to see whether or not these two
suckers were smart enough to call him out on it. For some reason, this was
retconned to the Kessel Cluster being a maze of black holes and parsecs being
used correctly, because of how difficult it was to navigate around all of
those gravity wells in hyperspace. Even though that makes even less sense.

------
saudioger
I assumed that they really just didn't communicate with each other well. Leia
showed up on her own (and failed), Luke sent the droids as part of _his_ plan
(also failed), Lando was trying to get Han out from the inside (interrupted by
the other plans)... they just didn't coordinate.

~~~
cgriswald
At the end of ESB, Luke and Leia are together with the droids in the medical
frigate, while Lando and Chewie are together in the _Falcon_. They have plans
to meet on Tatooine to rescue Han. It would be surprising if, after meeting on
Tatooine, they all went their separate ways to try their own plans.

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pweissbrod
It's interesting to wonder how crowds would receive Empire Strikes Back if it
came out today. I wager it would get roughly the same praise about special
effects in action and criticism about bizarre story as the most recent Disney
episode

~~~
InclinedPlane
There's a cool 2 part video series by Mikey Neumann that delves into the
immediate post-release reception for each of the Star Wars films, it's pretty
interesting:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij5fWCAnBPY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij5fWCAnBPY)

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glenra
I have a similar question about a different movie: in _Die Hard_ , Bruce sure
whines a lot about how the police are _following the Plan_. But...what were
they _supposed_ to do, if not follow their best available Plan? What did Bruce
_want_ them to do, if he had his druthers? Should they...NOT follow The Plan?
Follow the _second_ -best available Plan?

Going forward, how ought The Plan be modified? Should they add a "now we roll
a 20-sided die!" step, so future terrorists can never again be sure what'll
happen?

~~~
5555624
I've always thought he was whining because he knew the Plan would not work,
because things had changed. The Plan was designed for someone taking over a
building, holding hostages, and demanding a ransom of some sort. Indeed, Hans
even makes it seem like this is the case; assuming, correctly, that the police
will follow standard procedures for such an incident. McCain (Bruce) knows the
truth, that Hans is going to blow the building and it's not about hostages.

Pre-9/11, if a plane was hijacked, it was flown somewhere and there was some
sort of ransom; no one thought a plane would be hijacked and flown into a
building, so no one resisted.

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11thEarlOfMar
It's simple. Luke had no clue what to do. He just trusted The Force, like he
was trained. It worked out fine.

~~~
jbob2000
The Force works in mysterious ways.

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jancsika
Someone should start a movement to point out the plot holes in Star Wars from
wipe transitions that would obviously have killed the characters in the scene
being wiped. Yet later, there the characters are again, no explanation given.

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blacksmythe
The "How it should have ended" series is great.

How Return Of The Jedi Should Have Ended
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdukWtJwlPU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdukWtJwlPU)

