ANH 7/??
This has become more a close reading (with TV Tropes and the occasional picture) than anything else -- if wasn't already that from the beginning. Meh, whatever. That works too. It may even be useful than pure backstory-hunting for the au_bb. Especially if I do The Adventures of Lucy Skywalker -- I'll want to have looked very closely at the entire OT, and this is the point where things would start changing. There is no way Han would react to Lucy the way he does Luke.
Anyway, back to Tatooine, everyone's favourite Crapsack World.
-- HAN: I'm Han Solo.
HAAAAAN.
Somehow, every time I watch this, I'm continually surprised by Han's ... Han-ness. The smirk! The roguish grin! The braggadacio! And seriously, young Harrison Ford. The others I know primarily via these roles (or, with Mark Hamill, purely spoken ones), so I'm more surprised to see them look different from that. But Harrison Ford is Harrison Ford, and suddenly Harrison Ford has brown hair and no wrinkles.
Han, by the way, is the only one whose age I managed to judge correctly. According to the 1976 script, Leia is sixteen (I figured early to mid twenties), Luke is eighteen (I figured sixteen or seventeen - though at least the exact line is 'looks younger than his eighteen years'), and Han is thirtyish (I figured thirtyish).
The Han/Leia age gap is pretty irrelevant at the moment, but if you accept the ages given here, it becomes incredibly skeevy in ESB. I mean, skeevier than those scenes were already. It's a thirty-something man pulling no-means-yes on a teenage girl.
(Note to the future: No, Han, you are not a nice man. Yet. When your behaviour compares unfavourably to your father-in-law's, you should just maybe dial things down a bit.)
-- HAN: You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?
OBI-WAN: Should I have?
Heeeeeh. I love Obi-Wan. He's like a walking ego-puncturer.
-- HAN: It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!
As just about everyone in the known universe has pointed out, parsecs are units of distance, not speed. Hence the notoriety of this utterly senseless line. (Second only to NOOOOooooooOOOOO, I suspect.)
In the EU, of course, we do get some kind of elaborate fanwank explanation. It involves black holes and space-time curvature and other things I don't really understand.
In the script, we get this:
Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.
And this is why I hate the EU.
-- HAN: I've outrun Imperial starships -- not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you --
The what?
-- HAN: I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now.
The what?
I mean, I get his general meaning, but what are Corellian ships? Why are they so impressive? Is that where the cool Imperial ships come from? Is that where cool anyone ships come from? Hey, isn't that also where Han comes from? Do these things have anything to do with each other?
Maybe flying and fly-y stuff is some kind of cultural past-time, and little!Han learned from an uncle or something as soon as he could reach the controls. Or I guess it could be a kind of weird patriotism. This is a Corellian man saying that he can even outrun Corellian ships -- like a backhanded compliment. Or perhaps it's more of a pride thing. He's not just another Corellian ace pilot. He can evade his own people's ships, 'cause he's just that good.
-- Anyway, Han quite reasonably asks what the cargo is.
OBI-WAN: Only passengers. Myself, the boy, two droids, and ... no questions asked.
Luke is "the boy" yet again. It's a perfectly reasonably way to speak about him to Han, but still. You know, I bet that if Luke lives to be, like, three hundred, he'll show up in the Netherworld of the Force and they'll all be 'IT'S THE BOY.' Extra points if Luke's own manifestation never looks much more than thirty because ~his spirit is young~ or something, while Obi-Wan is eternally sixtyish because he was born sixtyish. Like Eugene Greenhilt.
As far as I remember, Luke -- for all his famed petulance -- never seems remotely bothered by everyone using these weird infantilizing pet names for him. I don't know, maybe he got so tired of the constant LU-UUUUUKE! that it's a welcome change.
-- Han is immediately suspicious and Obi-Wan says in his most suspicious tone that they're trying to avoid the Empire.
HAN: It's going to cost you something extra. Ten thousand in advance.
LUKE: o_O
He's all but sputtering in outrage and it's kind of hilarious. I know a lot of people find whiny!Luke irritating, not without reason, but I mostly just want to pat him on the head and tell him that things will get better.
Except they won't. Ever.
-- LUKE: We could almost buy our own ship for that!
HAN: But who's going to fly it, kid? You?
Maybe Luke just sends out subliminal CONDESCEND TO ME signals in the Force.
LUKE: You bet I could! I'm not such a bad pilot myself!
<3
But, now that I think about it, this is ... okay, he's obviously supposed to sound kind of pathetic, and he does. Especially since he was so awkward when Obi-Wan praised his gravity-bound flying earlier, and he's been stuck on a planet for his entire life. It's like Luke himself doesn't think he's that great: he's just posturing. We're meant to dismiss him the way Han dismisses him and he dismisses himself.
Until, you know, he blows up the Death Star.
I guess it's ... anti-foreshadowing?
-- Obi-Wan interrupts him to explain he's not carrying that much in his purse, but he'll give him even more when he gets them there. Han considers and agrees.
Seriously, where were all the Han Solos on prequel!Tatooine?
-- Some stormtroopers come in and Luke and Obi-Wan slip out. Obi-Wan tells Luke he'll have to sell his speeder.
LUKE: That's okay. I'm never coming back to this planet again.
Does it count as ironic foreshadowing if the thing being foreshadowed hadn't been planned yet? Or is that just Hilarious In Hindsight? I mean, ROTJ ended up being mostly a Darker and Edgier rehash of ANH. At this point nobody knew that Luke would come back, kicking ass all the way.
I guess it depends on if you look at it in more of an in-story or out-of-story way. For instance, you can interpret the Leia and Vader of ANH in light of the later revelation that she's his daughter -- but she wasn't his daughter when it was written, so the similarities between them (if they're not purely coincidental or in the eye of the beholder) were definitely not written with that in mind.
I guess they might be written as parallel figures to sharpen the contrast between them. The small white-clad girl and the ginormous black-armoured man, the beautiful princess and the horrifying cyborg, rebels and traitors who are bold, brash and -- against expectation -- intensely faithful in the face of all opposition. (Sort of how Yoda and Palpatine parallel each other. The similarities make the differences all the more pronounced.)
Or you could say 'regardless, she is his daughter, so that's the most reasonable way to interpret it.'
I tend to veer wildly between Doylist and Watsonian interpretation -- depending largely on whether a story element jars me out of it or not -- but that's ... kind of inconsistent?
Uh. Back to the regularly scheduled programming...
-- The notorious Greedo scene. I have nothing to say except I hate it too.
HAN: Sorry about the mess. *flips the bartender some coins*
If style has a name, it's Han Solo.
-- Okay, back to the Death Star.
VADER: Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable.
This brings up the same issue as above. Should we read this as an indication of Leia's latent Force powers? (Which, um, never show up at all?) Or is Leia just that much of a BAMF?
IDK. I like Force-sensitive!Leia, I just think it was done poorly. OTOH, I also like BAMF!Leia. Not that being Force-sensitive prevents you from being a BAMF (VADERLUKEOBI-WANPALPATINE), just. You know.
Also: mind probe? What? Was that some kind of ... thingy ... on the interrogation droid? Like, a torture device? Or did he just bypass the mundane torture and go straight for some kind of Force power? I think that's what happened in the radio play, but I've never heard it. All I remember about it is that he made her think she was burning alive, which takes me straight back to the Dr Jekyll Watson/Mr Hyde Doyle issue.
Dr Watson? Dr Watson, are you there? Could you look at some irony for -- oh, Doyle, it's you. Um . . . sorry, wrong number.
(In either case, Leia is hardcore. Yet again.)
-- Tarkin is his evil self and tells Vader that he's thought of a different way to persuade her.
VADER: What do you mean?
Tarkin could probably start cackling maniacally and Vader would still be 'no, seriously, I don't get it.' Because his brain just doesn't work that way. Mass murder is no more his style than racism is Luke's ("What?" "What do you mean?").
Vader will crush your throat or torture your boyfriend or screw with your business enterprises, but his threats are always highly personalized. Blowing up an entire planet because one person crossed him is not the kind of thing that even crosses his mind. His problem is with Leia, not Alderaan. Which is why, contrary to popular belief AND the EU AND TV Tropes, he's not the one who blows it up.
I've wondered why Tarkin, not Vader, appears to be in charge here. But you know, putting Vader in charge of the Death Star would be the stupidest tactical decision ever. He'd probably use it as a really big starship if he didn't sabotage it outright.
This, incidentally, is ... kind of ... related to a criticism of Revenge of the Sith that I come across every now and again. While a lot of people see PT!Anakin as such a wimp that he couldn't possibly approach the awe-inspiring evil of Darth Vader (let alone become him), some see him almost as the reverse -- much worse than Vader. At the least, he commits crimes far greater than anything Vader ever does in the OT. In fact, he commits one of the worst of them before he even falls.
My theory is that Lucas, or somebody, thought that we wouldn't be able to accept him as a villain if he hadn't already done villainous things. They just ... went a little overboard, so that the foreshadowing of villainy ended up worse than the actual villainy. Vader doesn't commit mass murder, and he certainly doesn't kill children.
Going back to the OT, I guess it could be a sort of foreshadowing? Or -- I don't know if Vader was always meant to be redeemed, but he was always a Fallen Hero. He's a tragic character from the get-go, and the tragedy cuts all the sharper if he's not just a Complete Monster like Tarkin, but someone in whom we can see remnants of a great Jedi, of a hero. The fact that there are lines he doesn't personally cross just makes it worse when he steps over the ones he will.
Of course, Luke does say he can sense the good in him, so it only stands to reason that there are good things for him to sense. Apart from their family issues, if some part of Vader is still a good person, however repressed that part might be, you'd expect it to manifest itself in some way.
Even if that way is just being somewhat less evil than everyone around him.
(Dr Watson, thank you for holding!)
-- TARKIN: Set your course for Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan.
TROOPER: With pleasure.
Yes: by "everyone," I did, in fact, mean everyone. The scene cuts away there, but I imagine it went like this:
TROOPER: Also, the admiral wanted me to you remind you that it's puppy-kicking Friday.
TARKIN: I had not forgotten.
TROOPER: But there are no puppies on the Death Star. How will we meet our quota?
TARKIN: Do not concern yourself. There are billions of puppies on Alderaan.
TROOPER: Oh, jolly good!
-- The droids hide in a sort of alcove by ... locking the door.
STORMTROOPER: The door's locked. We'll move onto the next one.
How has the Rebellion survived such tactical brilliance?
-- The new...ish Jabba scene. Makes no sense continuity-wise. Jabba doesn't particularly look like Jabba. Very nearly worth it to see Han Solo charming a giant slug.
I could almost go straight for Harrison Ford.
-- HAN: Jabba, you're a wonderful human being.
Heh. (I know, I'm not being a good purist, but this always makes me smile. Han's smug grin may have something to do with that.)
-- Luke sells his speeder for apparently less than it's worth, and he and Obi-Wan rush away. A mysterious hooded figure skulks after them.
I love this movie.
-- Back at the spaceport, Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids show up to meet with Han. While just about everyone we've seen so far wears either hooded robes or leather vests (this is the joy of Science Fantasy - you can have it all!), Luke shrugs on a ... poncho?
<3
-- Their mysterious stalker flattens against the wall and babbles something into the com. He appears to have a trunk.
-- I'm so used to being impressed by the Millennium Falcon that I forget that it kind of looks like a trash heap.
Luke gapes. And not in the awestruck farmboy way.
LUKE: What a piece of junk!
Don't hold back like that, sweetheart. Tell us how you really feel.
(Actually, he kind of has a point: ie, they'll be in rather worse trouble if the ship falls apart in them in the middle of space somewhere.)
-- Han doesn't even look surprised.
HAN: She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've added some special modifications myself.
So, is "kid" a step up or a step down from "the boy"?
The script describes the Falcon as "a Corellian pirateship." I kind of wonder how many special modifications it already had. Also, I kind of love Han's faux-courtly gesture as he ushers them up the ramp.
-- C-3PO: Hello, sir.
Han ignores him, smirks, shakes his head, and looks away. I think he's rolling his eyes at ... a droid speaking to him? I don't know. Han be a privileged asshat sometimes. But it could just as easily be the idea of being "sir" to anyone, so ... I don't know.
-- Speaking of the bizarre mix of costume choices you can carry off in science fantasy, this:
-- So, the stalker gives the stormtroopers directions and they shoot at Han and he shoots back for a bit before running inside. They all miss, giving us our first glimpse of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, but a fairly innocuous one -- at least they're not infinitely worse than the heroes. Yet.
-- Threepio puts on a seatbelt. Heh.
-- Apparently there are a couple of Imperial cruisers after them for ... some reason. Is this seriously all because Obi-Wan cut that guy's arm off? They don't know that the droids are onboard, do they? Well, I guess The Darkly Clad Creature (seriously, that's what he's called) might have mentioned it.
-- LUKE: Why don't you outrun them? I thought you said this thing was fast!
HAN, angrily: Watch your mouth, kid, or you're going to find yourself floating home!
Well, this is a promising beginning.
I'd kind of forgotten that Han and Luke didn't actually hit it off at first. Han obviously thinks Luke is a petulant kid (which he kind of is), Luke just as obviously thinks Han is a braggart (...which he is), and at this point they've both still got very short fuses.
-- The cruisers fire at them and the ship shakes.
HAN: And here's where the fun begins.
So that's where the line originally came from.
Oh.
-- Han says something about coordinates and Luke just about throws a screaming fit.
HAN: Travelling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy!
Aaaaand we're back to boy.
-- HAN: Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?
...
...
Is that science I just heard?
----------------
The short version:
(1) The notorious 'less than twelve parsecs' line is described in the script as a 'stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.' No fanwank required!
(2) The Millennium Falcon is Corellian, the big Imperial ships are Corellian, and I seem to recall that Han is Corellian too. I'm starting to sense a pattern.
(3) Obi-Wan consistently refers to Luke as "the boy." Han alternates between "boy" and "kid." Luke appears to inspire automatic condescension in everyone he meets.
(4) Luke's insistence that he could fly, he's not that bad, comes off as a meaningless bravado. It's not.
(5) Vader used something called a mind probe on Leia that isn't working particularly well. It could be part of the torture device, it could be some telepathic Force power thing: I don't know. I would think it odd that he couldn't sense her Force-sensitivity even when he's poking around her head, though. Is she not Force-sensitive yet just that much less powerful than Luke?
I guess that would provide a less faily reason for Obi-Wan taking the boy twin and ignoring entirely forgetting about the girl's existence. I mean, it's still faily, but at least it'd be a reason other than 'she's the girl.'
(6) When Tarkin says he has a better way to make Leia talk, mua ha ha ha, Vader has no idea what he's talking about. Alderaan was definitely not his idea.
(7) When it comes to flying in hyperspace, precise calculations (or the Force, presumably) are very important.
Anyway, back to Tatooine, everyone's favourite Crapsack World.
-- HAN: I'm Han Solo.
HAAAAAN.
Somehow, every time I watch this, I'm continually surprised by Han's ... Han-ness. The smirk! The roguish grin! The braggadacio! And seriously, young Harrison Ford. The others I know primarily via these roles (or, with Mark Hamill, purely spoken ones), so I'm more surprised to see them look different from that. But Harrison Ford is Harrison Ford, and suddenly Harrison Ford has brown hair and no wrinkles.
Han, by the way, is the only one whose age I managed to judge correctly. According to the 1976 script, Leia is sixteen (I figured early to mid twenties), Luke is eighteen (I figured sixteen or seventeen - though at least the exact line is 'looks younger than his eighteen years'), and Han is thirtyish (I figured thirtyish).
The Han/Leia age gap is pretty irrelevant at the moment, but if you accept the ages given here, it becomes incredibly skeevy in ESB. I mean, skeevier than those scenes were already. It's a thirty-something man pulling no-means-yes on a teenage girl.
(Note to the future: No, Han, you are not a nice man. Yet. When your behaviour compares unfavourably to your father-in-law's, you should just maybe dial things down a bit.)
-- HAN: You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?
OBI-WAN: Should I have?
Heeeeeh. I love Obi-Wan. He's like a walking ego-puncturer.
-- HAN: It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!
As just about everyone in the known universe has pointed out, parsecs are units of distance, not speed. Hence the notoriety of this utterly senseless line. (Second only to NOOOOooooooOOOOO, I suspect.)
In the EU, of course, we do get some kind of elaborate fanwank explanation. It involves black holes and space-time curvature and other things I don't really understand.
In the script, we get this:
Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.
And this is why I hate the EU.
-- HAN: I've outrun Imperial starships -- not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you --
The what?
-- HAN: I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now.
The what?
I mean, I get his general meaning, but what are Corellian ships? Why are they so impressive? Is that where the cool Imperial ships come from? Is that where cool anyone ships come from? Hey, isn't that also where Han comes from? Do these things have anything to do with each other?
Maybe flying and fly-y stuff is some kind of cultural past-time, and little!Han learned from an uncle or something as soon as he could reach the controls. Or I guess it could be a kind of weird patriotism. This is a Corellian man saying that he can even outrun Corellian ships -- like a backhanded compliment. Or perhaps it's more of a pride thing. He's not just another Corellian ace pilot. He can evade his own people's ships, 'cause he's just that good.
-- Anyway, Han quite reasonably asks what the cargo is.
OBI-WAN: Only passengers. Myself, the boy, two droids, and ... no questions asked.
Luke is "the boy" yet again. It's a perfectly reasonably way to speak about him to Han, but still. You know, I bet that if Luke lives to be, like, three hundred, he'll show up in the Netherworld of the Force and they'll all be 'IT'S THE BOY.' Extra points if Luke's own manifestation never looks much more than thirty because ~his spirit is young~ or something, while Obi-Wan is eternally sixtyish because he was born sixtyish. Like Eugene Greenhilt.
As far as I remember, Luke -- for all his famed petulance -- never seems remotely bothered by everyone using these weird infantilizing pet names for him. I don't know, maybe he got so tired of the constant LU-UUUUUKE! that it's a welcome change.
-- Han is immediately suspicious and Obi-Wan says in his most suspicious tone that they're trying to avoid the Empire.
HAN: It's going to cost you something extra. Ten thousand in advance.
LUKE: o_O
He's all but sputtering in outrage and it's kind of hilarious. I know a lot of people find whiny!Luke irritating, not without reason, but I mostly just want to pat him on the head and tell him that things will get better.
Except they won't. Ever.
-- LUKE: We could almost buy our own ship for that!
HAN: But who's going to fly it, kid? You?
Maybe Luke just sends out subliminal CONDESCEND TO ME signals in the Force.
LUKE: You bet I could! I'm not such a bad pilot myself!
<3
But, now that I think about it, this is ... okay, he's obviously supposed to sound kind of pathetic, and he does. Especially since he was so awkward when Obi-Wan praised his gravity-bound flying earlier, and he's been stuck on a planet for his entire life. It's like Luke himself doesn't think he's that great: he's just posturing. We're meant to dismiss him the way Han dismisses him and he dismisses himself.
Until, you know, he blows up the Death Star.
I guess it's ... anti-foreshadowing?
-- Obi-Wan interrupts him to explain he's not carrying that much in his purse, but he'll give him even more when he gets them there. Han considers and agrees.
Seriously, where were all the Han Solos on prequel!Tatooine?
-- Some stormtroopers come in and Luke and Obi-Wan slip out. Obi-Wan tells Luke he'll have to sell his speeder.
LUKE: That's okay. I'm never coming back to this planet again.
Does it count as ironic foreshadowing if the thing being foreshadowed hadn't been planned yet? Or is that just Hilarious In Hindsight? I mean, ROTJ ended up being mostly a Darker and Edgier rehash of ANH. At this point nobody knew that Luke would come back, kicking ass all the way.
I guess it depends on if you look at it in more of an in-story or out-of-story way. For instance, you can interpret the Leia and Vader of ANH in light of the later revelation that she's his daughter -- but she wasn't his daughter when it was written, so the similarities between them (if they're not purely coincidental or in the eye of the beholder) were definitely not written with that in mind.
I guess they might be written as parallel figures to sharpen the contrast between them. The small white-clad girl and the ginormous black-armoured man, the beautiful princess and the horrifying cyborg, rebels and traitors who are bold, brash and -- against expectation -- intensely faithful in the face of all opposition. (Sort of how Yoda and Palpatine parallel each other. The similarities make the differences all the more pronounced.)
Or you could say 'regardless, she is his daughter, so that's the most reasonable way to interpret it.'
I tend to veer wildly between Doylist and Watsonian interpretation -- depending largely on whether a story element jars me out of it or not -- but that's ... kind of inconsistent?
Uh. Back to the regularly scheduled programming...
-- The notorious Greedo scene. I have nothing to say except I hate it too.
HAN: Sorry about the mess. *flips the bartender some coins*
If style has a name, it's Han Solo.
-- Okay, back to the Death Star.
VADER: Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable.
This brings up the same issue as above. Should we read this as an indication of Leia's latent Force powers? (Which, um, never show up at all?) Or is Leia just that much of a BAMF?
IDK. I like Force-sensitive!Leia, I just think it was done poorly. OTOH, I also like BAMF!Leia. Not that being Force-sensitive prevents you from being a BAMF (VADERLUKEOBI-WANPALPATINE), just. You know.
Also: mind probe? What? Was that some kind of ... thingy ... on the interrogation droid? Like, a torture device? Or did he just bypass the mundane torture and go straight for some kind of Force power? I think that's what happened in the radio play, but I've never heard it. All I remember about it is that he made her think she was burning alive, which takes me straight back to the Dr Jekyll Watson/Mr Hyde Doyle issue.
Dr Watson? Dr Watson, are you there? Could you look at some irony for -- oh, Doyle, it's you. Um . . . sorry, wrong number.
(In either case, Leia is hardcore. Yet again.)
-- Tarkin is his evil self and tells Vader that he's thought of a different way to persuade her.
VADER: What do you mean?
Tarkin could probably start cackling maniacally and Vader would still be 'no, seriously, I don't get it.' Because his brain just doesn't work that way. Mass murder is no more his style than racism is Luke's ("What?" "What do you mean?").
Vader will crush your throat or torture your boyfriend or screw with your business enterprises, but his threats are always highly personalized. Blowing up an entire planet because one person crossed him is not the kind of thing that even crosses his mind. His problem is with Leia, not Alderaan. Which is why, contrary to popular belief AND the EU AND TV Tropes, he's not the one who blows it up.
I've wondered why Tarkin, not Vader, appears to be in charge here. But you know, putting Vader in charge of the Death Star would be the stupidest tactical decision ever. He'd probably use it as a really big starship if he didn't sabotage it outright.
This, incidentally, is ... kind of ... related to a criticism of Revenge of the Sith that I come across every now and again. While a lot of people see PT!Anakin as such a wimp that he couldn't possibly approach the awe-inspiring evil of Darth Vader (let alone become him), some see him almost as the reverse -- much worse than Vader. At the least, he commits crimes far greater than anything Vader ever does in the OT. In fact, he commits one of the worst of them before he even falls.
My theory is that Lucas, or somebody, thought that we wouldn't be able to accept him as a villain if he hadn't already done villainous things. They just ... went a little overboard, so that the foreshadowing of villainy ended up worse than the actual villainy. Vader doesn't commit mass murder, and he certainly doesn't kill children.
Going back to the OT, I guess it could be a sort of foreshadowing? Or -- I don't know if Vader was always meant to be redeemed, but he was always a Fallen Hero. He's a tragic character from the get-go, and the tragedy cuts all the sharper if he's not just a Complete Monster like Tarkin, but someone in whom we can see remnants of a great Jedi, of a hero. The fact that there are lines he doesn't personally cross just makes it worse when he steps over the ones he will.
Of course, Luke does say he can sense the good in him, so it only stands to reason that there are good things for him to sense. Apart from their family issues, if some part of Vader is still a good person, however repressed that part might be, you'd expect it to manifest itself in some way.
Even if that way is just being somewhat less evil than everyone around him.
(Dr Watson, thank you for holding!)
-- TARKIN: Set your course for Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan.
TROOPER: With pleasure.
Yes: by "everyone," I did, in fact, mean everyone. The scene cuts away there, but I imagine it went like this:
TROOPER: Also, the admiral wanted me to you remind you that it's puppy-kicking Friday.
TARKIN: I had not forgotten.
TROOPER: But there are no puppies on the Death Star. How will we meet our quota?
TARKIN: Do not concern yourself. There are billions of puppies on Alderaan.
TROOPER: Oh, jolly good!
-- The droids hide in a sort of alcove by ... locking the door.
STORMTROOPER: The door's locked. We'll move onto the next one.
How has the Rebellion survived such tactical brilliance?
-- The new...ish Jabba scene. Makes no sense continuity-wise. Jabba doesn't particularly look like Jabba. Very nearly worth it to see Han Solo charming a giant slug.
I could almost go straight for Harrison Ford.
-- HAN: Jabba, you're a wonderful human being.
Heh. (I know, I'm not being a good purist, but this always makes me smile. Han's smug grin may have something to do with that.)
-- Luke sells his speeder for apparently less than it's worth, and he and Obi-Wan rush away. A mysterious hooded figure skulks after them.
I love this movie.
-- Back at the spaceport, Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids show up to meet with Han. While just about everyone we've seen so far wears either hooded robes or leather vests (this is the joy of Science Fantasy - you can have it all!), Luke shrugs on a ... poncho?
<3
-- Their mysterious stalker flattens against the wall and babbles something into the com. He appears to have a trunk.
-- I'm so used to being impressed by the Millennium Falcon that I forget that it kind of looks like a trash heap.
Luke gapes. And not in the awestruck farmboy way.
LUKE: What a piece of junk!
Don't hold back like that, sweetheart. Tell us how you really feel.
(Actually, he kind of has a point: ie, they'll be in rather worse trouble if the ship falls apart in them in the middle of space somewhere.)
-- Han doesn't even look surprised.
HAN: She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've added some special modifications myself.
So, is "kid" a step up or a step down from "the boy"?
The script describes the Falcon as "a Corellian pirateship." I kind of wonder how many special modifications it already had. Also, I kind of love Han's faux-courtly gesture as he ushers them up the ramp.
-- C-3PO: Hello, sir.
Han ignores him, smirks, shakes his head, and looks away. I think he's rolling his eyes at ... a droid speaking to him? I don't know. Han be a privileged asshat sometimes. But it could just as easily be the idea of being "sir" to anyone, so ... I don't know.
-- Speaking of the bizarre mix of costume choices you can carry off in science fantasy, this:
-- So, the stalker gives the stormtroopers directions and they shoot at Han and he shoots back for a bit before running inside. They all miss, giving us our first glimpse of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, but a fairly innocuous one -- at least they're not infinitely worse than the heroes. Yet.
-- Threepio puts on a seatbelt. Heh.
-- Apparently there are a couple of Imperial cruisers after them for ... some reason. Is this seriously all because Obi-Wan cut that guy's arm off? They don't know that the droids are onboard, do they? Well, I guess The Darkly Clad Creature (seriously, that's what he's called) might have mentioned it.
-- LUKE: Why don't you outrun them? I thought you said this thing was fast!
HAN, angrily: Watch your mouth, kid, or you're going to find yourself floating home!
Well, this is a promising beginning.
I'd kind of forgotten that Han and Luke didn't actually hit it off at first. Han obviously thinks Luke is a petulant kid (which he kind of is), Luke just as obviously thinks Han is a braggart (...which he is), and at this point they've both still got very short fuses.
-- The cruisers fire at them and the ship shakes.
HAN: And here's where the fun begins.
So that's where the line originally came from.
Oh.
-- Han says something about coordinates and Luke just about throws a screaming fit.
HAN: Travelling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy!
Aaaaand we're back to boy.
-- HAN: Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?
...
...
Is that science I just heard?
----------------
The short version:
(1) The notorious 'less than twelve parsecs' line is described in the script as a 'stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.' No fanwank required!
(2) The Millennium Falcon is Corellian, the big Imperial ships are Corellian, and I seem to recall that Han is Corellian too. I'm starting to sense a pattern.
(3) Obi-Wan consistently refers to Luke as "the boy." Han alternates between "boy" and "kid." Luke appears to inspire automatic condescension in everyone he meets.
(4) Luke's insistence that he could fly, he's not that bad, comes off as a meaningless bravado. It's not.
(5) Vader used something called a mind probe on Leia that isn't working particularly well. It could be part of the torture device, it could be some telepathic Force power thing: I don't know. I would think it odd that he couldn't sense her Force-sensitivity even when he's poking around her head, though. Is she not Force-sensitive yet just that much less powerful than Luke?
I guess that would provide a less faily reason for Obi-Wan taking the boy twin and ignoring entirely forgetting about the girl's existence. I mean, it's still faily, but at least it'd be a reason other than 'she's the girl.'
(6) When Tarkin says he has a better way to make Leia talk, mua ha ha ha, Vader has no idea what he's talking about. Alderaan was definitely not his idea.
(7) When it comes to flying in hyperspace, precise calculations (or the Force, presumably) are very important.