Star Words: Episode VI, Part 21

[matril]

So our heroes land on Endor's moon and begin looking for a way to infiltrate the shield generator. Han decides the best strategy is to sneak over with Chewie while the others wait. Luke isn't so sure. He warns Han that if he isn't perfectly silent, more troopers might show up. (Precognition or just good intuition? Either way, this will prove quite true.)

Meanwhile, Han offers the most Han-ish response.

"Hey...it's me."

The most delightful thing about this confident line is how, not five minutes later, Han steps on a twig, alerts the Imperials of their presence, and sets off a long, chaotic chain of events. Whoops.

On the other hand...that chain of events leads them to the Ewoks, who turn out to be a crucial element of the Rebellion's victory. Han certainly didn't find them on purpose. Could it be that some "mystical energy field" controls his destiny? Or at least a power beyond his own conscious will, guiding his unwitting steps toward a noisy little branch? He must have a decent skill with stealth to have become a smuggler, yet he never saw that twig coming. An intriguing thought.

Next, an unexpected ally....

Comments

[krpalmer]

I bought a used copy of the Star Wars RPG's core rule book many years ago (although I never quite got around to asking anyone I knew if they wanted to play it with me), and I remember it mentioning Han stepping on the twig as an example of "how to spin the dice not rolling the way you wanted into developing the story." As for a story that presumably didn't depend on rolling dice, pondering "controlled destiny" reminds me of having seen just a few days ago some insistences "Han must be using the Force without realizing it," although your suggestions might not be quite how those making the insistences wanted to see it.

Unfortunately, I also have to admit that while I do my best to not make "harsh judgements of the lines and how they're delivered" the only measure of a movie, some of the Endor scenes on location do have me thinking of all the accusations that Harrison Ford, offended his character wasn't going to be killed off the way he'd wanted, had stopped bothering to act. My best counterbalance against that seems your own comments that "the symbolically reborn Han is becoming a different sort of person."

[matril]

It does seem like Han rolled a one on stealth! I like the idea that an apparent disaster can be turned into a positive.

As far as Harrison Ford's attitude, I do get the sense that he was a little fatigued of playing the same character, though I have to wonder why he was more willing to reprise Indiana Jones when he's rather a more static figure. In any case, he was willing enough by the time Disney bought the company, but his appearance was such a disappointment and regression for Han (not to mention a pointless death) that I've never seen it as canon, original actor regardless. I'm much happier with where Han is at the finish of Episode VI and can easily project his positive progression from there.

[krpalmer]

So far as "wanting to keep playing Indiana Jones" goes, I considered this and had some slightly amused thoughts that perhaps the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark was more interesting in general than "sitting in front of bluescreen next to Peter Mayhew in a full-fur costume," although then I remembered "the fight scene cut short because Harrison Ford was sick on location." I've seen suggestions Ford was mellowing when George Lucas started getting ideas for sequels (and signed on when Lucas was still involved in production), but as for how it all turned out I can't quite disagree with you... I was at least surprised when he showed up in The Rise of Skywalker, but that wound up somewhere between "blah" and "blah" pretty much like the rest of the movie for me.