Star Wars is my crack (2)

[anghraine]

Hey, I made epicrants!  I'm kind of flattered.  (And kind of freaked out, too, but still.  It's like, five years after the fact and somebody's complaining about my story!)

Anyway, continued thoughts on ANH:

-- I've heard plenty of complaints about Mark Hamill's acting in ANH, but I don't really follow it.  He makes a spectacularly convincing whiny teenager.  The whine in particular has a distinct ring of authenticity.  If the prequels had ever happened, he'd be a chip off the old block. As it is, I wouldn't be surprised if Hamill actually was sixteen or eighteen or whatever it is.

Maybe if Luke were supposed to be something other than the archetypal golden-haired, fresh-faced hero, pure as the newly driven snow but restless and impractical until he takes a few levels in badass, I might see something to complain about ... but, um, no.  That's exactly what he is.

-- he's also strangely pretty.  I did not remember this.  definitely his father's son

-- Luke wants to join the Imperial Fleet?!  LOL, that would be ... lol.  Please tell me there's a fic of that.  (Some small part of me has always wanted to see Luke and Vader ruling the galaxy together.  But not dark!Luke because that's ... no.)

-- I'm vaguely intrigued by Luke's relationship to the Lars(es?).  They've done their best for him, they're looking out for his welfare, they're even fond of him, but it's obvious that they haven't raised Luke to see them as his parents (surrogate or otherwise), or himself as their son.  There's this pervading consciousness of -- fostering, I suppose, rather than adoption.  "This is a child we have taken responsibility for, who is not our child."

To put it another way, Leia's father is Bail Organa.  But Luke's father is Anakin Skywalker and nobody ever forgets it.  It's like he's Anakin Mk II (and all the weirder because in some ways, he really is).  He doesn't belong there and everybody, not least Luke himself, knows it.  He seems to occupy a position somewhere between 'useful dependent' and 'ticking bomb.'

-- So, Luke hates the farm, hates Tatooine, and doesn't have parents so much as caretakers.  He desperately tries to persuade his uncle to let him go (and despite constant danger seems much happier once he's got away).  However, no matter how much he complains about being needed on the farm, when the chance actually comes to just up and leave, he refuses.  Because he's needed on the farm.

You know, it doesn't matter that he's whiny and kind of incompetent.  That's the stuff that heroes are made of.

-- I keep hearing that Luke had only known Obi-Wan about a week, but ... um, no?  He mayn't know him particularly well, but he definitely knows him.

-- Icky corpses are icky.

-- Obi-Wan on the incredible accuracy of imperial stormtroopers:  AHAHAHAHA.

-- I don't know if Han shot first or not.  He's still awesome.  However, seeing young!Harrison Ford is decidedly surreal.

-- Chewy!

-- Obi-Wan is kind of irritating.  I mean, aside of prepping Luke for patricide.  It's like every issue the fen ever had with Dumbledore ratcheted up to eleven.  Except fascist world domination, of course.

-- I wonder when Han went from 'SHEER COINCIDENCE!!' to, you know 'cool superpowers.'  (I once read a story where he was [slightly] Force-sensitive himself.  It was strangely good.)

-- "I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you!"

Oh, Luke.

(Seriously, though, that pretty much covers it.  He's a Light-side Jedi with mad piloting skillz, and he rescues people.  What better mission statement do you need?)

-- I've heard a lot about the creepiness of ANH's Luke/Leia, but honestly, it didn't bother me.  Maybe it's because I could never quite wrap my brain around Luke and Leia as siblings, so there's not much of a knee-jerk factor, but ... meh.  It's obviously headed towards Han/Leia, it's obvious that she is only really interested in Han, and it's obvious that Luke's feelings for her are a mixture of Dulcinea syndrome, the same hero worship he has for Han, and an adolescent crush on an attractive, confident older woman.  I have an incest squick a mile wide, but this just doesn't ping it.

(I really want not!Luke/Leia fic where they aren't brother and sister.  However, there'd be no point -- exactly my issue with twin!Luke-and-Leia in canon.  It makes no difference whatsoever.)

-- Obi-Wan lets Vader kill him.  How unsatisfying.  For Vader, I mean.  It does work dramatically.

-- Han returning in the nick of time = awesome.  Also, I'm having flashbacks ... flashforwards?? ... to Captain Jack in the creeptastic The Doctor Dances.

-- Luke blowing up the Death Star = ZOMG awesome.  It's kind of interesting, though, that Vader doesn't see his epic Force potential until, well, he actually uses it -- that's when he comes out with his whole "the Force is strong with this one" thing.  Apparently it's all it takes for him to light up like a supernova in VaderVision.  Is that why he was never trained?  'Cause if nine was too old -- oops.