Days 15, 16, 17, 18 + SW:ANH 9/??
Apr. 1st, 2011 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineGuh, infections suck. So back to things that make me feel better: memes and Star Wars. And TV Tropes.
Day 15: What is your favourite female character arc?
Hm. I've tried not to repeat any, but I can't really think of any I like better than Donna's or Romana's. And I hate, hate, hate the end of Donna's, so I'll go with Romana -- an arrogant, condescending Time Lord (like most Time Lords) who doesn't just become nice and friendly, though she does become both more capable and more approachable as time and regenerations go on, but who steps out of her comfortable superiority to take on the stewardship of an entire universe. She cares about people, but not to the point that loses perspective; she takes their pet robot dog with her; and for all her awesome, she goes far beyond the point where you ever have to worry about unscrupulous megalomania.
I'm not sure we can say that about any other Time Lord in the series. Ever.
Day 16: Who is your favourite mother character?
Oh, there are a lot of these. I was almost tempted to save Polgara for this one, just because epic motherhood. However, I actually think I'm going to have to go with a beautiful, nobly self-sacrificing mother who, for a good portion of the series, is completely defined by her motherhood and her son.
I mean Lily Evans, of course, though I thought of Mary too. I always liked Lily, even though we saw so little of her. I don't often care for sacred motherhood blah blah, and I particularly dislike the way that maternal sacrifice is often elevated above any other kind, including paternal sacrifice (*hugs Star Wars*). Harry Potter ... well, it does that too. Rowling invents in-story magical rationale about why Lily's sacrifice is the crucial one, and it makes sense, but we all know it's really because she's his mother.
Yet, all of that said, I really like her. I like that she's every bit as CAPSLOCKY as Harry. I like that she loved her sister, and her best friend, and her husband, and that these loves were mutually exclusive for them but never for Lily. I like that she was pretty and popular and powerful and she's not demonized for it. (In the books. In fandom...yikes.) I like that she's the saviour of a world that always treated her like shit, because she would never, never, never trade her son's life for her own.
I even like that she stood by her best friend way longer than she should have, choosing to blind herself to what he was doing when he wasn't around her, and only breaking free when the relationship become toxic to her personally. I don't admire it, but it makes her character more interesting to me. I like that there was a point at which she wouldn't do that any more, and this was it -- when it became actively harmful. I like that she didn't accept his "I'm sorry you were offended" pseudo-apologies, because apologizing for something you really mean and have every intention of following up on (well yes I plan to join a fascist organization bent on the slaughter of you, your family and everyone like you, but I didn't mean to actually say it to your face!) is not an apology.
I like that she did her own thing for a year and a bit, that it was never about choosing one boy over the other. Her issues with James were all about James. Her issues with Snape were all about Snape. They made it about each other because they happened to be rivals and enemies, but it was never some stupid Team James and Team Snape thing. It's Team Lily, y'all.
I like that her purity didn't reform James, or anything like that, but that she was willing to give him the time of day once he matured independently, that she was willing to acknowledge at least some of his merits (like saving Snape from death/ostracization) even when she hated him, and that she wasn't willing to put up with his shit despite the fact that she was, according to JKR, attracted to him. I like that their relationship ended up being completely separate from Snape. I like that she wasn't about to be anybody's pet Mudblood, but she wasn't going to put up some hot jerk bullying her best friend either.
I like that she defied Voldemort three times, because holy shit hardcore, that she's tolerant of James going stir-crazy and dutifully sticks Petunia's fugly vase on her shelf and has a pet cat and is openly affectionate towards Sirius Black, who she seems to have spent a good portion of her life loathing. People change, situations change, and Lily gets that.
Day 17: Who is your favourite warrior character?
Athena, without a doubt. She was always my favourite of the gods -- I just loved the idea of combining wisdom and war. If Ares is the personification of waste-'em-all warfare, Athena is strategic badassery. She's brilliant, she looks out for those who are loyal to her, she rarely seems to go in for the usual disproportionate retribution, she has grey eyes (wheeee!), and she doesn't screw people over just for the hell of it. She's hardcore and brilliant and strangely decent. Also, owls.
And as far as I can tell, she's completely asexual without it being a marker of her inhumanity. Oh, she's not human, but none of 'em are and nearly all the rest are sexual. A good portion of them are ragingly sexual, in fact, leaving their bastard children all over the place and molesting people as swans or cows or who knows what else. Athena's not just celibate, like her sister-cousin Artemis, she seems to have no real interest. And everyone's like WHATEVER ATHENA HEY COULD YOU PLEASE HELP ME WITH THIS BATTLE/LOGIC PROBLEM/SWEET SWEET VENGEANCE?
Nice.
Day 18: Who is your favourite non-warrior female character?
I'm not sure if this just means any female character who isn't a warrior, which isn't that difficult -- many settings don't even allow for female warriors -- or for the Distaff Counterpart to Non Action Guy? i.e., She's not a warrior in a setting where women can become warriors, and may even be valued for doing so?
I'm not sure, so I think I'll go with Esther from the Bible. My favourite Biblical ... personage is probably Deborah, but Esther was always my favourite as a character.
Esther is emphatically not an Action Girl. She's no Jael. She's pretty far even from a Deborah. I can't really see her leading her people to war in any circumstances. She leads them in fasting, instead; she doesn't need them to die for her, she needs -- well, moral support, and solidarity. I mean, this is a girl who (in-story -- I don't know about the history or scriptural meaning or anything) seems to have mostly ended up in her position through the machinations of others.
The king takes a fancy to her, because ... she's beautiful? But also, I always thought, because she's gentle and sweet and altogether has a more soothing personality than everyone else. So it's all good, until Haman starts plotting against the Jews and finagles his evil decree. As far as I recall, Esther never considers just keeping her mouth shut and letting her people be slaughtered anyway. Esther's passivity is not cowardice, it's just being sensible. She's a bit like Susan Pevensie, only brighter.
A lot brighter, as it turns out. Esther schemes and manipulates and takes calculated risks and it all works out for her. No, she never slaps Haman or kicks him in the groin or whatever it is that a "strong woman" should do. She plots against him and she wins. She saves her people. She wins wealth and accolades for her uncle. She retains her favoured position, apparently for life. She's happy. She may very well be the most triumphant woman in the Bible, ever, and she's celebrated for it.
And she does all this without leading armies or ramming spikes to anyone's forehead or anything.
---------------------------------
Hm, the meme already went on awhile, and this is a fairly long reading, but ... eh, whatever. Back to Star Wars!
HAN: I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything.
Including Jedi, apparently.
HAN: There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.
I love-hate ROTJ and just hate-hate the EU, but I'll admit the fact that Han ends up (1) married to a Jedi, (2) brother-in-law to a Jedi, and (3) father to three Jedi fills me heart with glee.
So does the expression on Obi-Wan's face, which I can only describe as polite contempt.
(For all of my dislike of the prequels and a lot of PT!Obi-Wan's characterisation, I do think Ewan MacGregor nailed Alec Guinness' expressions and mannerisms.I just wish he hadn't.)
HAN: It's a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
I'm not sure what "it" refers to here; something they've seen Obi-Wan do? Common knowledge about Jedi? It sounds like he's quasi-acknowledging something cool that's somehow related to the Force in someway, but thinks it's done with smoke and mirrors and such.
You know, I'm also not sure if we ever find out when he came around. I don't think there's anything in ANH that proves Luke is more than a brilliant and lucky pilot. They hardly even see each other in ESB; the fact that Luke tracked them to Cloud City through the Force is impressive, but since Han was frozen before he could have found out about that, he'd have seen Luke doing impossible jumps and wasting Jabba's pet asshats and such before anybody had a chance to tell him "oh yeah, also he can see the future and psychically traced you to Cloud City."
Maybe everybody's just being really tactful about the obvious superpowers. Obi-Wan just smiles a bit to himself, like he's thinking this one time, I fought a guy who could shoot lightning out of his fingertips. I wonder if Palpatine still does that.
So, Obi-Wan tells Luke to stop trying so hard to pay attention to what's going on around him, which is pretty much the opposite of what Yoda will teach him. Also unlike Yoda, he uses lightsaber practice as a vehicle for Luke's Force training; I'm pretty sure Yoda does his best to ignore the fact that Luke even owns a lightsaber. (In PT-land, quite understandably.) So anyway, Obi-Wan grabs a helmet off the wall and shoves it on Luke's head, covering his eyes with the blast shield.
I always liked the idea that Obi-Wan made this all up on the spot. Not the religious instruction, obviously, but there's no way he could have known what Han would or wouldn't have on his ship. He just makes use of what he finds. There's a remote, so he sets Luke to deflecting it, and oh look, a helmet to cover his eyes, that'll work nicely. It's all spur-of-the-moment and resourceful and making an effective exercise out of whatever he can get his hands on.
As opposed to, say, a traditional exercise that Jedi have always used for beginning students, and it just so happened that all the components were right there on the Falcon.
Back to OTland, Luke helpfully points out that he now can't see.
OBI-WAN: Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.
I'm not that familiar with the EU, so I wouldn't know, but it'd be interesting to find out if there were ever any blind Jedi. Or near-sighted Jedi. Somehow I don't think they'd need glasses.
Anyway, the remote hits Luke in the -- back? -- and Obi-Wan tells him to stretch out with his feelings. You can just make out Han chortling in the background. Hm, since it's been long enough to set exercises (and convert Luke to a wholehearted devotee of something he'd never even heard about until they left), I'm going to assume that "long enough" has included some explanation of what instructions like "stretch out with your feelings" even mean.
Luke obviously understands him, anyway, because he takes a moment before bringing up his lightsaber and instinctively deflecting three zaps from three different directions. I like that the moment is more sweet than epic. Obi-Wan, though reserved as always, is tracking the remote with his eyes and looks pleased and proud when Luke succeeds. <3
HAN: I call it luck.
OBI-WAN: In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.
He kind of spits the last word out. Not sure what he's really thinking here, except the obvious Force-shapes-our-destinies thing.
HAN: Good against remotes is one thing. *smirk* Good against the living, now, that's something else.
Baby steps, Han. He has to fight against remotes now so that he can save your ass later. Also, this excludes any threat from things like droids -- but then, I don't think the OT has droids in any capacity other than servants. Robot navigators, robot translators, robot ... fieldhands? But no Terminators or even battle droids. (Not that battle droids were much of a threat anyway.)
So something beeps and Han says they're about to enter the Alderaan system. *wince* Han and Chewie leave for the cockpit, and Luke kind of beams.
LUKE: You know, I did feel something. I could almost see the remote.
Hm. I wonder if the special psychic Force stuff is another, extra sense, or more like ... normal senses wound up beyond the impossible. Or the first manifesting as the second or some combination of the above. It's not ~meaningful~ but worldbuilding details interest me.This is why I write fanfic.
OBI-WAN: You have taken your first step into a wider world.
First, no shit. Luke starts off as this petulant dreamer on some backwater planet in the Outer Rim, but from this moment on his feet are planted firmly on the path to badassery. I mean, here he is when we first meet him:
Now he's like this:
In two movies and maybe three years, he'll be like this:
Yeah.
Also, I like the idea that becoming Jedi opens the door into a wider world, not a narrower one.
Okay, switching to the Death Star -- I'm still surprised how evenly the movie is split between the Luke/Obi-Wan (and Han) storyline and the Leia/Vader (and Tarkin) one. She's not even (physically) present in this scene, but it's still all about her.
Enter yet another Imperial guy who undoubtedly has an elaborate Wookieepedia entry. Um, let me check the script.
Imperial Officer Cass stands before Governor Tarkin and the evil Dark Lord Darth Vader.
...okay!
Apparently Tarkin is less evil, or his evil is so self-evident that it doesn't even need to be mentioned. Because Vader's is so subtle.
It would be hilarious, and not entirely unprecedented in the GFFA, if Vader's title actually were "the Dark Lord."
So Cass tells Tarkin that their scouts went to Dantooine -- which we know is fairly remote -- and their scouts have checked out the (deserted) base, and now they're looking around the surrounding systems. Again, at least a little time must have passed in which all this could happen.
TARKIN: She lied! She lied to us!
No, really?
I don't even know why he's so shocked by this. Threatening genocide against someone's entire planet is not something that earns you undying loyalty. He actually sounds kind of betrayed, like he just found out his lover's been cheating on him rather than -- OH GOD MAKE IT STOP.
Vader's reaction, however, skips right past creepy into hilarity.
VADER: I told you she would never consciously betray the Rebellion.
He actually sounds smug. Like, he totally knew she was lying and didn't say anything because ... if people are going to go around with stupid Death Stars stupidly blowing up planets then they deserve what they get? I don't know. Earlier, he sounded furious at her betrayal of the Empire, but now he seems to almost respect her loyalty to the Rebellion - but then, maybe it's loyalty in general that he respects. Particularly loyalty as hardcore as Leia's.
Hm. Despite the fact that she's a known spy and traitor and he's outraged at both of these things, he is absolutely certain that she's incapable of betraying the Rebellion. I don't think it's the Force, I think he just gets her -- probably because he's the same way, just with the loyalties reversed. He turned traitor to the Jedi and the Republic and became unwaveringly dedicated to the Empire (without, as far as I can tell, feeling the slightest allegiance to anyone in it). In some warped alternate universe where he was put in Leia's position, he'd probably do exactly the same thing that she did.
Their responses to each other are also reversed; at first, Leia seems to have a grudging respect for him, given that the worst insult she can come up with is "bold." Uh, how crushing. Then, after he tortures her, she's livid and contemptuous. Vader, on the other hand, is initially furious at her treason but now seems to admire the strength of her loyalty.
I'm not sure if I find the parallels between them more interesting as ... you know, unrelated icons of their respective parties, like Yoda and Palpatine, or actually as father and daughter.
Anyway, Vader's reaction to her deception is so far from dismay that it's actually amusing. Cass is "oh crap, strategic problem" and Tarkin's "how could you betray me, Leia? HOW?" but Vader is just going "I TOLD YOU SO NANNER NANNER."
I love you, Anakin Skywalker.
TARKIN: Terminate her. Immediately.
Hell hath no fury like an asshole scorned.
Back to ... Alderaan? Well, what's left of it, anyway. Han thinks it's some sort of meteor asteroid thingy, Chewbecca growls about something, and Luke comes running up asking what's going on. His voice is -- normally I'd call it whiny, but it's more like annoyance-verging-on-panic which is entirely justified by the fact that their destination is in tiny pieces and they're about to get captured by the Death Star. So ... alarmed, let's say.
HAN: It ain't there. It's been totally blown away.
LUKE: What? How?
Again, this would be whiny, but in the circumstances ...
Obi-Wan automatically knows that the Empire did it, and Han is pretty much "how do you know that also no."
HAN: There's another ship coming in.
LUKE: Maybe they know what happened!
<3
LOL JUST MAYBE
Obi-Wan identifies it as a short-range Imperial ship ... he knows all about these things, apparently ... and Obi-Wan and Luke immediately start brainstorming about how it got there. Obi-Wan insists it couldn't have got "this deep in space" on its own, which implies that Alderaan was really deep into space? I thought it was kind of at the hub of things - isn't that why Tarkin chose to blow it up? Luke thinks the ship might have been part of a convoy, which actually seems kind of reasonable, and Han couldn't care less, he just wants to vaporize it.
LUKE: Look at him. He's headed for that small moon.
*claps hands in glee*
HAN: I think I can get him before he gets there ... he's almost in range.
Yeah, no. *bounces*
OBI-WAN: THAT'S NO MOON.
Oh wait, it is. Here we go!
YAAAAAAAY
OBI-WAN: It's a space station.
HAN: It's too big to be a ...*horrified face* space station.
*everyone gapes*
LUKE: I have a very bad feeling about this.
Apparently it's Classic Line Time. Uh, here we go:
CLASSIC LINE: I have a bad feeling about this.
ITERATION : 1
SPEAKER: Luke Skywalker
CONTEXT: Death Star =/= moon
I didn't know Luke started it. I think I'd remembered it as Han. Huh.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the actual meaning of the phrase is "I can't tell what's going on, but my gut is telling me that it's really really bad." Rather than the several dozen different ways it's been used and reused (and reused and reused and reused) in the franchise.
Everybody agrees that this is feeling Very Bad Indeed and they try to reverse.
LUKE: Why are we still moving towards it?!
His tone is half-panicked and half-accusatory and pretty much exactly how Leia will sound when she's in his seat (I mean, his actual seat, but also ... yeah), next movie.
<3
Han orders everything shut down while Luke shrieks that there has to be something to do. Han's "oh shit" expression shifts to one of intense determination.
HAN: They're not going to get me without a fight!
I IS RAWR MANLY MAN
OBI-WAN: You can't win ... but there are alternatives to fighting.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, choosing the option that doesn't involve slicing people's limbs off? Colour me astonished.
Anyway, they close in on the Death Star and Luke stares around at everything, his eyes wide. To his credit, he never goes for the "whoa, this isn't what I meant to sign up for!" or "why me? </Garion>" option. By now, he doesn't seem much more than mildly apprehensive.
HOLY SHIT THE DEATH STAR IS HUGE
I mean, if it's the size of a moon it must be, but it didn't really hit me until this shot:
o_O
So the Death Star sucks the Millennium Falcon onto something, and somebody announces something on an intercom, and some other guy sends some stormtroopers to go do something. They're accompanied by this tiny squeaky black robot thing -- I have no idea what it does, but it looks cool.
This is a good portion of the joy of Star Wars. It's like Rule of Cool personified.
A voice over the intercom (...which is actually called an intercom YAY RABBITS) informs Tarkin that they've captured a freighter entering "the remains of the Alderaan system" (eurgh assholes), and that its markings match those of a ship that blasted out of Mos Eisley. I find it mildly interesting that Tarkin even knows what Mos Eisley is without at least being told what planet it's on. Or that he cares. Maybe recent events called it to his attention.
VADER: They must be trying to return the stolen plans to the princess.
Actually, they were trying to return them to her father. But still it's pretty close; like Luke (well, the other way around, but you know), he's able to take a single piece of evidence and reason his way from Point A to Point B to Point C in a flash.
I love having a fandom that not only has intelligent main characters, but respects them for it. Hell, cunning was even used as a compliment. And bold as a quasi-insult, but also a virtue. For the same character, who genuinely possesses both qualities, as do both of his children, the heroes of the story.
Huh.
VADER: ... She may yet be of some use to us.
Speaking of cunning plans.
His tone is very much: "now that your incredibly foolish and blasphemous plot has failed JUST LIKE I SAID IT WOULD, let me show you how a cunning plan actually works."
I'd remembered this idea as Tarkin's, but I should have known better. It's simple, straightforward, with low risks and a high chance of success. Of course it's Vader's. The Emperor probably took one look at Anakin Skywalker and went IF I OWNED HIM MY EMPIRE WOULDN'T FALL APART THE FIRST TIME I GOT A HEAD COLD WHY HELLO THERE STRAPPING YOUNG MAN WE HAVE COOKIES.
So, Vader and some officers go down to the hangar where the Falcon has landed. An officer (identified in the script as "an officer") informs him that the ship is empty, the log says the crew abandoned ship after takeoff (...okay, that's some fast doctoring; since we now know that ships regularly include logs, it'd be hilarious to hear some of them - especially if they sound like Obi-Wan's in Darths and Droids), the escape pods have been jettisoned, and there are no droids. Vader, again proving his worth as the Empire's resident brain, orders it checked just to make sure.
VADER: I sense something . . . something I have not felt since . . .
-- my best friend left me to burn alive.
As far as I know, that part of the story has never much changed. I think there was a forest involved originally (and Anakin-the-different-person!), but that's all. And -- of all the things that Vader is royally pissed about, I can't really quibble with this one. Executing him would have been just (and merciful); slicing off his limbs and leaving him to slowly roast to death was monstrous. It's practically Palpatine-worthy; Vader at least gives his victims a quick death.
Also, this indicates that the ability to psychically sense the presence of certain people has less to do with family (as it might otherwise appear) than familiarity -- no, more than that. Vader senses Obi-Wan, his former mentor and friend. In Empire, Vader seems to be able to sense Luke's presence, and Luke and Leia arguably sense one another's, but not Vader's. In Jedi, Vader and Luke definitely sense each other, Vader and Leia definitely don't, Luke seems to sense Leia, Leia definitely senses Luke, and Palpatine never senses anyone at all. It seems to map fairly neatly onto the intimacy of the characters' relationships.
Vader turns on his heel and marches away, which is ... somewhat confusing, unless he's having trouble pinpointing the source of the feeling. Or maybe he left his lightsaber in his desk or something.
The stormtroopers go in and start checking out the ship, which seems to be empty, and then the camera focuses on the floors, aka Han's smuggling compartments. Heh. Luke's and Han's heads pop up, and then Obi-Wan's out of a different compartment.
HAN: This is ridiculous. Even if I could take off, I'd never get past the tractor beam.
OBI-WAN: Leave that to me!
HAN: Damn fool, I knew that you were going to say that.
OBI-WAN: Who's the more foolish -- the fool, or the fool who follows him?
lol wut
Chewbacca shows up in Luke and Han's compartment, which must have been fairly crowded, and howls his agreement with this kernel of wisdom. Han sighs and affectionately rubs his head, which is sweet.
Also, there are red stripes on his pants, which look kind of cool. Apparently they're Corellian something somethings. I don't know and Wookieepedia can be scarring. (The first entry I looked up: Leia Organa Solo. It may be the only time that I've preferred to take Lucas' interpretation for anything, just because he was like "so Leia became a senator and they settled down in this comfy house and lived happily ever after. Also Luke never got married and the Emperor stayed dead." YES PLZ)
Okay, the stormtroopers tell the scanner crew to check the ship out; about as soon as they disappear, there's a crashing sound and thenHan's a voice calling for help. The two stormtroopers guarding the ship go up and are obviously shot, though I don't know if they're killed or just stunned. Probably killed and Han's the only one with a blaster, so it has to be him.
Hm, time for a death toll. As matters stand at this point in A New Hope, it looks like this:
DARTH VADER
KILLS: 2 (Rebel guy; Anakin Skywalker)
OTHER: betrayed the Jedi; helped the Empire hunt down them down; tortured Princess Leia; choked Admiral Motti; bugged the Falcon
HAN SOLO
KILLS: 3 (Greedo, two nameless stormtroopers)
OTHER: smuggler; works for the crime lord and slaver Jabba
PRINCESS LEIA
KILLS: 1 (nameless stormtrooper)
OTHER: spy, sorta; politician
LUKE SKYWALKER
KILLS: none
OTHER: whines sometimes
GOVERNOR TARKIN
KILLS: billions (every occupant of the planet Alderaan)
OTHER: ordered execution of Princess Leia
Some officer guy back at the control room notices that the dead stormtroopers aren't at their posts.
OFFICER: TX-412. Why aren't you at your post? TX-412, do you copy?
Nope, stormtroopers don't have names. They don't even have ranks. They have file numbers.
The Empire sucks.
However, for some reasons many of the Imperials are very pretty. I mean, even Tarkin is (because he's Peter Cushing, but still). I could dismiss it as, y'know, actors and stuff, but the Rebellion looks quite a lot more everyday. That sort of suits them both, but now I'm imagining Imperial criteria looking like casting calls for Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, a stormtrooper comes out and mimes that his comthingy isn't working right, so the officer leaves his aide in the room and gets up to deal with it, but then the door opens and there's Chewbacca and the script really describes it best: With a bone-chilling howl, the giant Wookiee flattens the officer with one blow.
Yeah, that. Then the aide pulls out his blaster but then Han (in stormtrooper armour) and he's blasted away. Luke is also a in stormtrooper outfit, which seem to be one-size-fits-all. (...Hm, could a woman get into one of them? I'm pretty sure none of the stormtroopers are women. Or the officers. Or the Rebel fighters. Or the Rebel command. Or anyone at all except Leia. Damn, I almost wish I had gone for the fantasy!genderswap!verse for my au_bb.)
LUKE: You know, between his howling and your blasting everything in sight, it's a wonder the whole station doesn't know we're here.
HAN: Bring them on! I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.
Luke doesn't sound nearly as whiny as he generally does when he complains; he just snaps this out and ... it's hard to disagree. Chewie is very obvious. Han is very obvious. It's pretty sad when Luke Skywalker has to be the resident Slytherin.
The generational parallels, they continue.
Revised death tolls:
DARTH VADER
KILLS: 2 (Rebel guy; Anakin Skywalker)
OTHER: betrayed the Jedi; helped the Empire hunt down them down; tortured Princess Leia; choked Admiral Motti; bugged the Falcon
HAN SOLO
KILLS: 4 (Greedo, two nameless stormtroopers, gantry officer's aide)
OTHER: smuggler; works for the crime lord Jabba
PRINCESS LEIA
KILLS: 1 (nameless stormtrooper)
OTHER: spy, sorta; politician
LUKE SKYWALKER
KILLS: none
OTHER: whines sometimes
GOVERNOR TARKIN
KILLS: billions (every occupant of the planet Alderaan)
OTHER: ordered execution of Princess Leia
CHEWBACCA
KILLS: 1 (gantry officer)
OTHER: smuggler, presumably; howls all the time
Summary
(1) To all appearances, Obi-Wan is resourceful enough to invent Luke's training exercises on the spot, just grabbing whatever happens to be at hand.
(2) Han seems to be under the impression that all serious danger comes from the living.
(3) When Luke quasi-uses the Force to deflect the remote-blasts, he can almost see the remote despite having no vision whatsoever.
(4) By this point, the Empire sent scouts out to Dantooine, checked it out, found the Rebel base, examined that, and are now searching the nearby systems. Travel is fast in the GFFA, but I don't think it's that fast.
(5) Tarkin seems to take Leia's deception as a personal betrayal.
(6) Vader seems to take it as a personal victory, because so there he was right. He also seems to rather respect the strength of her convictions, if not the direction of them.
(7) Obi-Wan doesn't know how such a short-range ship got "so deep in space" as their present locale, formerly known as Alderaan. Ergo, Alderaan was really deep in space. But also central enough to be a worthwhile target.
(8) According to the script, intercoms are called intercoms.
(9) Vader psychically senses Obi-Wan and then leaves, implying that the sense was vague enough that he didn't pinpoint Obi-Wan's identity and/or location immediately, that he didn't want to confront him there, or some other reason. We don't know if Obi-Wan senses Vader or not.
(10) Han has sort of official-looking red stripes on his pants.
(11) Stormtroopers are identified by alphanumeric codes, not names or ranks. (12) Han does not like subterfuge, which leads me to believe that he's not perfectly suited to the criminal life.
Day 15: What is your favourite female character arc?
Hm. I've tried not to repeat any, but I can't really think of any I like better than Donna's or Romana's. And I hate, hate, hate the end of Donna's, so I'll go with Romana -- an arrogant, condescending Time Lord (like most Time Lords) who doesn't just become nice and friendly, though she does become both more capable and more approachable as time and regenerations go on, but who steps out of her comfortable superiority to take on the stewardship of an entire universe. She cares about people, but not to the point that loses perspective; she takes their pet robot dog with her; and for all her awesome, she goes far beyond the point where you ever have to worry about unscrupulous megalomania.
I'm not sure we can say that about any other Time Lord in the series. Ever.
Day 16: Who is your favourite mother character?
Oh, there are a lot of these. I was almost tempted to save Polgara for this one, just because epic motherhood. However, I actually think I'm going to have to go with a beautiful, nobly self-sacrificing mother who, for a good portion of the series, is completely defined by her motherhood and her son.
I mean Lily Evans, of course, though I thought of Mary too. I always liked Lily, even though we saw so little of her. I don't often care for sacred motherhood blah blah, and I particularly dislike the way that maternal sacrifice is often elevated above any other kind, including paternal sacrifice (*hugs Star Wars*). Harry Potter ... well, it does that too. Rowling invents in-story magical rationale about why Lily's sacrifice is the crucial one, and it makes sense, but we all know it's really because she's his mother.
Yet, all of that said, I really like her. I like that she's every bit as CAPSLOCKY as Harry. I like that she loved her sister, and her best friend, and her husband, and that these loves were mutually exclusive for them but never for Lily. I like that she was pretty and popular and powerful and she's not demonized for it. (In the books. In fandom...yikes.) I like that she's the saviour of a world that always treated her like shit, because she would never, never, never trade her son's life for her own.
I even like that she stood by her best friend way longer than she should have, choosing to blind herself to what he was doing when he wasn't around her, and only breaking free when the relationship become toxic to her personally. I don't admire it, but it makes her character more interesting to me. I like that there was a point at which she wouldn't do that any more, and this was it -- when it became actively harmful. I like that she didn't accept his "I'm sorry you were offended" pseudo-apologies, because apologizing for something you really mean and have every intention of following up on (well yes I plan to join a fascist organization bent on the slaughter of you, your family and everyone like you, but I didn't mean to actually say it to your face!) is not an apology.
I like that she did her own thing for a year and a bit, that it was never about choosing one boy over the other. Her issues with James were all about James. Her issues with Snape were all about Snape. They made it about each other because they happened to be rivals and enemies, but it was never some stupid Team James and Team Snape thing. It's Team Lily, y'all.
I like that her purity didn't reform James, or anything like that, but that she was willing to give him the time of day once he matured independently, that she was willing to acknowledge at least some of his merits (like saving Snape from death/ostracization) even when she hated him, and that she wasn't willing to put up with his shit despite the fact that she was, according to JKR, attracted to him. I like that their relationship ended up being completely separate from Snape. I like that she wasn't about to be anybody's pet Mudblood, but she wasn't going to put up some hot jerk bullying her best friend either.
I like that she defied Voldemort three times, because holy shit hardcore, that she's tolerant of James going stir-crazy and dutifully sticks Petunia's fugly vase on her shelf and has a pet cat and is openly affectionate towards Sirius Black, who she seems to have spent a good portion of her life loathing. People change, situations change, and Lily gets that.
Day 17: Who is your favourite warrior character?
Athena, without a doubt. She was always my favourite of the gods -- I just loved the idea of combining wisdom and war. If Ares is the personification of waste-'em-all warfare, Athena is strategic badassery. She's brilliant, she looks out for those who are loyal to her, she rarely seems to go in for the usual disproportionate retribution, she has grey eyes (wheeee!), and she doesn't screw people over just for the hell of it. She's hardcore and brilliant and strangely decent. Also, owls.
And as far as I can tell, she's completely asexual without it being a marker of her inhumanity. Oh, she's not human, but none of 'em are and nearly all the rest are sexual. A good portion of them are ragingly sexual, in fact, leaving their bastard children all over the place and molesting people as swans or cows or who knows what else. Athena's not just celibate, like her sister-cousin Artemis, she seems to have no real interest. And everyone's like WHATEVER ATHENA HEY COULD YOU PLEASE HELP ME WITH THIS BATTLE/LOGIC PROBLEM/SWEET SWEET VENGEANCE?
Nice.
Day 18: Who is your favourite non-warrior female character?
I'm not sure if this just means any female character who isn't a warrior, which isn't that difficult -- many settings don't even allow for female warriors -- or for the Distaff Counterpart to Non Action Guy? i.e., She's not a warrior in a setting where women can become warriors, and may even be valued for doing so?
I'm not sure, so I think I'll go with Esther from the Bible. My favourite Biblical ... personage is probably Deborah, but Esther was always my favourite as a character.
Esther is emphatically not an Action Girl. She's no Jael. She's pretty far even from a Deborah. I can't really see her leading her people to war in any circumstances. She leads them in fasting, instead; she doesn't need them to die for her, she needs -- well, moral support, and solidarity. I mean, this is a girl who (in-story -- I don't know about the history or scriptural meaning or anything) seems to have mostly ended up in her position through the machinations of others.
The king takes a fancy to her, because ... she's beautiful? But also, I always thought, because she's gentle and sweet and altogether has a more soothing personality than everyone else. So it's all good, until Haman starts plotting against the Jews and finagles his evil decree. As far as I recall, Esther never considers just keeping her mouth shut and letting her people be slaughtered anyway. Esther's passivity is not cowardice, it's just being sensible. She's a bit like Susan Pevensie, only brighter.
A lot brighter, as it turns out. Esther schemes and manipulates and takes calculated risks and it all works out for her. No, she never slaps Haman or kicks him in the groin or whatever it is that a "strong woman" should do. She plots against him and she wins. She saves her people. She wins wealth and accolades for her uncle. She retains her favoured position, apparently for life. She's happy. She may very well be the most triumphant woman in the Bible, ever, and she's celebrated for it.
And she does all this without leading armies or ramming spikes to anyone's forehead or anything.
---------------------------------
Hm, the meme already went on awhile, and this is a fairly long reading, but ... eh, whatever. Back to Star Wars!
HAN: I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything.
Including Jedi, apparently.
HAN: There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.
I love-hate ROTJ and just hate-hate the EU, but I'll admit the fact that Han ends up (1) married to a Jedi, (2) brother-in-law to a Jedi, and (3) father to three Jedi fills me heart with glee.
So does the expression on Obi-Wan's face, which I can only describe as polite contempt.
(For all of my dislike of the prequels and a lot of PT!Obi-Wan's characterisation, I do think Ewan MacGregor nailed Alec Guinness' expressions and mannerisms.
HAN: It's a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
I'm not sure what "it" refers to here; something they've seen Obi-Wan do? Common knowledge about Jedi? It sounds like he's quasi-acknowledging something cool that's somehow related to the Force in someway, but thinks it's done with smoke and mirrors and such.
You know, I'm also not sure if we ever find out when he came around. I don't think there's anything in ANH that proves Luke is more than a brilliant and lucky pilot. They hardly even see each other in ESB; the fact that Luke tracked them to Cloud City through the Force is impressive, but since Han was frozen before he could have found out about that, he'd have seen Luke doing impossible jumps and wasting Jabba's pet asshats and such before anybody had a chance to tell him "oh yeah, also he can see the future and psychically traced you to Cloud City."
Maybe everybody's just being really tactful about the obvious superpowers. Obi-Wan just smiles a bit to himself, like he's thinking this one time, I fought a guy who could shoot lightning out of his fingertips. I wonder if Palpatine still does that.
So, Obi-Wan tells Luke to stop trying so hard to pay attention to what's going on around him, which is pretty much the opposite of what Yoda will teach him. Also unlike Yoda, he uses lightsaber practice as a vehicle for Luke's Force training; I'm pretty sure Yoda does his best to ignore the fact that Luke even owns a lightsaber. (In PT-land, quite understandably.) So anyway, Obi-Wan grabs a helmet off the wall and shoves it on Luke's head, covering his eyes with the blast shield.
I always liked the idea that Obi-Wan made this all up on the spot. Not the religious instruction, obviously, but there's no way he could have known what Han would or wouldn't have on his ship. He just makes use of what he finds. There's a remote, so he sets Luke to deflecting it, and oh look, a helmet to cover his eyes, that'll work nicely. It's all spur-of-the-moment and resourceful and making an effective exercise out of whatever he can get his hands on.
As opposed to, say, a traditional exercise that Jedi have always used for beginning students, and it just so happened that all the components were right there on the Falcon.
Back to OTland, Luke helpfully points out that he now can't see.
OBI-WAN: Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.
I'm not that familiar with the EU, so I wouldn't know, but it'd be interesting to find out if there were ever any blind Jedi. Or near-sighted Jedi. Somehow I don't think they'd need glasses.
Anyway, the remote hits Luke in the -- back? -- and Obi-Wan tells him to stretch out with his feelings. You can just make out Han chortling in the background. Hm, since it's been long enough to set exercises (and convert Luke to a wholehearted devotee of something he'd never even heard about until they left), I'm going to assume that "long enough" has included some explanation of what instructions like "stretch out with your feelings" even mean.
Luke obviously understands him, anyway, because he takes a moment before bringing up his lightsaber and instinctively deflecting three zaps from three different directions. I like that the moment is more sweet than epic. Obi-Wan, though reserved as always, is tracking the remote with his eyes and looks pleased and proud when Luke succeeds. <3
HAN: I call it luck.
OBI-WAN: In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.
He kind of spits the last word out. Not sure what he's really thinking here, except the obvious Force-shapes-our-destinies thing.
HAN: Good against remotes is one thing. *smirk* Good against the living, now, that's something else.
Baby steps, Han. He has to fight against remotes now so that he can save your ass later. Also, this excludes any threat from things like droids -- but then, I don't think the OT has droids in any capacity other than servants. Robot navigators, robot translators, robot ... fieldhands? But no Terminators or even battle droids. (Not that battle droids were much of a threat anyway.)
So something beeps and Han says they're about to enter the Alderaan system. *wince* Han and Chewie leave for the cockpit, and Luke kind of beams.
LUKE: You know, I did feel something. I could almost see the remote.
Hm. I wonder if the special psychic Force stuff is another, extra sense, or more like ... normal senses wound up beyond the impossible. Or the first manifesting as the second or some combination of the above. It's not ~meaningful~ but worldbuilding details interest me.
OBI-WAN: You have taken your first step into a wider world.
First, no shit. Luke starts off as this petulant dreamer on some backwater planet in the Outer Rim, but from this moment on his feet are planted firmly on the path to badassery. I mean, here he is when we first meet him:
Now he's like this:
In two movies and maybe three years, he'll be like this:
Yeah.
Also, I like the idea that becoming Jedi opens the door into a wider world, not a narrower one.
Okay, switching to the Death Star -- I'm still surprised how evenly the movie is split between the Luke/Obi-Wan (and Han) storyline and the Leia/Vader (and Tarkin) one. She's not even (physically) present in this scene, but it's still all about her.
Enter yet another Imperial guy who undoubtedly has an elaborate Wookieepedia entry. Um, let me check the script.
Imperial Officer Cass stands before Governor Tarkin and the evil Dark Lord Darth Vader.
...okay!
Apparently Tarkin is less evil, or his evil is so self-evident that it doesn't even need to be mentioned. Because Vader's is so subtle.
It would be hilarious, and not entirely unprecedented in the GFFA, if Vader's title actually were "the Dark Lord."
So Cass tells Tarkin that their scouts went to Dantooine -- which we know is fairly remote -- and their scouts have checked out the (deserted) base, and now they're looking around the surrounding systems. Again, at least a little time must have passed in which all this could happen.
TARKIN: She lied! She lied to us!
No, really?
I don't even know why he's so shocked by this. Threatening genocide against someone's entire planet is not something that earns you undying loyalty. He actually sounds kind of betrayed, like he just found out his lover's been cheating on him rather than -- OH GOD MAKE IT STOP.
Vader's reaction, however, skips right past creepy into hilarity.
VADER: I told you she would never consciously betray the Rebellion.
He actually sounds smug. Like, he totally knew she was lying and didn't say anything because ... if people are going to go around with stupid Death Stars stupidly blowing up planets then they deserve what they get? I don't know. Earlier, he sounded furious at her betrayal of the Empire, but now he seems to almost respect her loyalty to the Rebellion - but then, maybe it's loyalty in general that he respects. Particularly loyalty as hardcore as Leia's.
Hm. Despite the fact that she's a known spy and traitor and he's outraged at both of these things, he is absolutely certain that she's incapable of betraying the Rebellion. I don't think it's the Force, I think he just gets her -- probably because he's the same way, just with the loyalties reversed. He turned traitor to the Jedi and the Republic and became unwaveringly dedicated to the Empire (without, as far as I can tell, feeling the slightest allegiance to anyone in it). In some warped alternate universe where he was put in Leia's position, he'd probably do exactly the same thing that she did.
Their responses to each other are also reversed; at first, Leia seems to have a grudging respect for him, given that the worst insult she can come up with is "bold." Uh, how crushing. Then, after he tortures her, she's livid and contemptuous. Vader, on the other hand, is initially furious at her treason but now seems to admire the strength of her loyalty.
I'm not sure if I find the parallels between them more interesting as ... you know, unrelated icons of their respective parties, like Yoda and Palpatine, or actually as father and daughter.
Anyway, Vader's reaction to her deception is so far from dismay that it's actually amusing. Cass is "oh crap, strategic problem" and Tarkin's "how could you betray me, Leia? HOW?" but Vader is just going "I TOLD YOU SO NANNER NANNER."
I love you, Anakin Skywalker.
TARKIN: Terminate her. Immediately.
Hell hath no fury like an asshole scorned.
Back to ... Alderaan? Well, what's left of it, anyway. Han thinks it's some sort of meteor asteroid thingy, Chewbecca growls about something, and Luke comes running up asking what's going on. His voice is -- normally I'd call it whiny, but it's more like annoyance-verging-on-panic which is entirely justified by the fact that their destination is in tiny pieces and they're about to get captured by the Death Star. So ... alarmed, let's say.
HAN: It ain't there. It's been totally blown away.
LUKE: What? How?
Again, this would be whiny, but in the circumstances ...
Obi-Wan automatically knows that the Empire did it, and Han is pretty much "how do you know that also no."
HAN: There's another ship coming in.
LUKE: Maybe they know what happened!
<3
LOL JUST MAYBE
Obi-Wan identifies it as a short-range Imperial ship ... he knows all about these things, apparently ... and Obi-Wan and Luke immediately start brainstorming about how it got there. Obi-Wan insists it couldn't have got "this deep in space" on its own, which implies that Alderaan was really deep into space? I thought it was kind of at the hub of things - isn't that why Tarkin chose to blow it up? Luke thinks the ship might have been part of a convoy, which actually seems kind of reasonable, and Han couldn't care less, he just wants to vaporize it.
LUKE: Look at him. He's headed for that small moon.
*claps hands in glee*
HAN: I think I can get him before he gets there ... he's almost in range.
Yeah, no. *bounces*
OBI-WAN: THAT'S NO MOON.
Oh wait, it is. Here we go!
YAAAAAAAY
OBI-WAN: It's a space station.
HAN: It's too big to be a ...*horrified face* space station.
*everyone gapes*
LUKE: I have a very bad feeling about this.
Apparently it's Classic Line Time. Uh, here we go:
CLASSIC LINE: I have a bad feeling about this.
ITERATION : 1
SPEAKER: Luke Skywalker
CONTEXT: Death Star =/= moon
I didn't know Luke started it. I think I'd remembered it as Han. Huh.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the actual meaning of the phrase is "I can't tell what's going on, but my gut is telling me that it's really really bad." Rather than the several dozen different ways it's been used and reused (and reused and reused and reused) in the franchise.
Everybody agrees that this is feeling Very Bad Indeed and they try to reverse.
LUKE: Why are we still moving towards it?!
His tone is half-panicked and half-accusatory and pretty much exactly how Leia will sound when she's in his seat (I mean, his actual seat, but also ... yeah), next movie.
<3
Han orders everything shut down while Luke shrieks that there has to be something to do. Han's "oh shit" expression shifts to one of intense determination.
HAN: They're not going to get me without a fight!
I IS RAWR MANLY MAN
OBI-WAN: You can't win ... but there are alternatives to fighting.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, choosing the option that doesn't involve slicing people's limbs off? Colour me astonished.
Anyway, they close in on the Death Star and Luke stares around at everything, his eyes wide. To his credit, he never goes for the "whoa, this isn't what I meant to sign up for!" or "why me? </Garion>" option. By now, he doesn't seem much more than mildly apprehensive.
HOLY SHIT THE DEATH STAR IS HUGE
I mean, if it's the size of a moon it must be, but it didn't really hit me until this shot:
o_O
So the Death Star sucks the Millennium Falcon onto something, and somebody announces something on an intercom, and some other guy sends some stormtroopers to go do something. They're accompanied by this tiny squeaky black robot thing -- I have no idea what it does, but it looks cool.
This is a good portion of the joy of Star Wars. It's like Rule of Cool personified.
A voice over the intercom (...which is actually called an intercom YAY RABBITS) informs Tarkin that they've captured a freighter entering "the remains of the Alderaan system" (eurgh assholes), and that its markings match those of a ship that blasted out of Mos Eisley. I find it mildly interesting that Tarkin even knows what Mos Eisley is without at least being told what planet it's on. Or that he cares. Maybe recent events called it to his attention.
VADER: They must be trying to return the stolen plans to the princess.
Actually, they were trying to return them to her father. But still it's pretty close; like Luke (well, the other way around, but you know), he's able to take a single piece of evidence and reason his way from Point A to Point B to Point C in a flash.
I love having a fandom that not only has intelligent main characters, but respects them for it. Hell, cunning was even used as a compliment. And bold as a quasi-insult, but also a virtue. For the same character, who genuinely possesses both qualities, as do both of his children, the heroes of the story.
Huh.
VADER: ... She may yet be of some use to us.
Speaking of cunning plans.
His tone is very much: "now that your incredibly foolish and blasphemous plot has failed JUST LIKE I SAID IT WOULD, let me show you how a cunning plan actually works."
I'd remembered this idea as Tarkin's, but I should have known better. It's simple, straightforward, with low risks and a high chance of success. Of course it's Vader's. The Emperor probably took one look at Anakin Skywalker and went IF I OWNED HIM MY EMPIRE WOULDN'T FALL APART THE FIRST TIME I GOT A HEAD COLD WHY HELLO THERE STRAPPING YOUNG MAN WE HAVE COOKIES.
So, Vader and some officers go down to the hangar where the Falcon has landed. An officer (identified in the script as "an officer") informs him that the ship is empty, the log says the crew abandoned ship after takeoff (...okay, that's some fast doctoring; since we now know that ships regularly include logs, it'd be hilarious to hear some of them - especially if they sound like Obi-Wan's in Darths and Droids), the escape pods have been jettisoned, and there are no droids. Vader, again proving his worth as the Empire's resident brain, orders it checked just to make sure.
VADER: I sense something . . . something I have not felt since . . .
-- my best friend left me to burn alive.
As far as I know, that part of the story has never much changed. I think there was a forest involved originally (and Anakin-the-different-person!), but that's all. And -- of all the things that Vader is royally pissed about, I can't really quibble with this one. Executing him would have been just (and merciful); slicing off his limbs and leaving him to slowly roast to death was monstrous. It's practically Palpatine-worthy; Vader at least gives his victims a quick death.
Also, this indicates that the ability to psychically sense the presence of certain people has less to do with family (as it might otherwise appear) than familiarity -- no, more than that. Vader senses Obi-Wan, his former mentor and friend. In Empire, Vader seems to be able to sense Luke's presence, and Luke and Leia arguably sense one another's, but not Vader's. In Jedi, Vader and Luke definitely sense each other, Vader and Leia definitely don't, Luke seems to sense Leia, Leia definitely senses Luke, and Palpatine never senses anyone at all. It seems to map fairly neatly onto the intimacy of the characters' relationships.
Vader turns on his heel and marches away, which is ... somewhat confusing, unless he's having trouble pinpointing the source of the feeling. Or maybe he left his lightsaber in his desk or something.
The stormtroopers go in and start checking out the ship, which seems to be empty, and then the camera focuses on the floors, aka Han's smuggling compartments. Heh. Luke's and Han's heads pop up, and then Obi-Wan's out of a different compartment.
HAN: This is ridiculous. Even if I could take off, I'd never get past the tractor beam.
OBI-WAN: Leave that to me!
HAN: Damn fool, I knew that you were going to say that.
OBI-WAN: Who's the more foolish -- the fool, or the fool who follows him?
lol wut
Chewbacca shows up in Luke and Han's compartment, which must have been fairly crowded, and howls his agreement with this kernel of wisdom. Han sighs and affectionately rubs his head, which is sweet.
Also, there are red stripes on his pants, which look kind of cool. Apparently they're Corellian something somethings. I don't know and Wookieepedia can be scarring. (The first entry I looked up: Leia Organa Solo. It may be the only time that I've preferred to take Lucas' interpretation for anything, just because he was like "so Leia became a senator and they settled down in this comfy house and lived happily ever after. Also Luke never got married and the Emperor stayed dead." YES PLZ)
Okay, the stormtroopers tell the scanner crew to check the ship out; about as soon as they disappear, there's a crashing sound and then
Hm, time for a death toll. As matters stand at this point in A New Hope, it looks like this:
DARTH VADER
KILLS: 2 (Rebel guy; Anakin Skywalker)
OTHER: betrayed the Jedi; helped the Empire hunt down them down; tortured Princess Leia; choked Admiral Motti; bugged the Falcon
HAN SOLO
KILLS: 3 (Greedo, two nameless stormtroopers)
OTHER: smuggler; works for the crime lord and slaver Jabba
PRINCESS LEIA
KILLS: 1 (nameless stormtrooper)
OTHER: spy, sorta; politician
LUKE SKYWALKER
KILLS: none
OTHER: whines sometimes
GOVERNOR TARKIN
KILLS: billions (every occupant of the planet Alderaan)
OTHER: ordered execution of Princess Leia
Some officer guy back at the control room notices that the dead stormtroopers aren't at their posts.
OFFICER: TX-412. Why aren't you at your post? TX-412, do you copy?
Nope, stormtroopers don't have names. They don't even have ranks. They have file numbers.
The Empire sucks.
However, for some reasons many of the Imperials are very pretty. I mean, even Tarkin is (because he's Peter Cushing, but still). I could dismiss it as, y'know, actors and stuff, but the Rebellion looks quite a lot more everyday. That sort of suits them both, but now I'm imagining Imperial criteria looking like casting calls for Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, a stormtrooper comes out and mimes that his comthingy isn't working right, so the officer leaves his aide in the room and gets up to deal with it, but then the door opens and there's Chewbacca and the script really describes it best: With a bone-chilling howl, the giant Wookiee flattens the officer with one blow.
Yeah, that. Then the aide pulls out his blaster but then Han (in stormtrooper armour) and he's blasted away. Luke is also a in stormtrooper outfit, which seem to be one-size-fits-all. (...Hm, could a woman get into one of them? I'm pretty sure none of the stormtroopers are women. Or the officers. Or the Rebel fighters. Or the Rebel command. Or anyone at all except Leia. Damn, I almost wish I had gone for the fantasy!genderswap!verse for my au_bb.)
LUKE: You know, between his howling and your blasting everything in sight, it's a wonder the whole station doesn't know we're here.
HAN: Bring them on! I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.
Luke doesn't sound nearly as whiny as he generally does when he complains; he just snaps this out and ... it's hard to disagree. Chewie is very obvious. Han is very obvious. It's pretty sad when Luke Skywalker has to be the resident Slytherin.
The generational parallels, they continue.
Revised death tolls:
DARTH VADER
KILLS: 2 (Rebel guy; Anakin Skywalker)
OTHER: betrayed the Jedi; helped the Empire hunt down them down; tortured Princess Leia; choked Admiral Motti; bugged the Falcon
HAN SOLO
KILLS: 4 (Greedo, two nameless stormtroopers, gantry officer's aide)
OTHER: smuggler; works for the crime lord Jabba
PRINCESS LEIA
KILLS: 1 (nameless stormtrooper)
OTHER: spy, sorta; politician
LUKE SKYWALKER
KILLS: none
OTHER: whines sometimes
GOVERNOR TARKIN
KILLS: billions (every occupant of the planet Alderaan)
OTHER: ordered execution of Princess Leia
CHEWBACCA
KILLS: 1 (gantry officer)
OTHER: smuggler, presumably; howls all the time
Summary
(1) To all appearances, Obi-Wan is resourceful enough to invent Luke's training exercises on the spot, just grabbing whatever happens to be at hand.
(2) Han seems to be under the impression that all serious danger comes from the living.
(3) When Luke quasi-uses the Force to deflect the remote-blasts, he can almost see the remote despite having no vision whatsoever.
(4) By this point, the Empire sent scouts out to Dantooine, checked it out, found the Rebel base, examined that, and are now searching the nearby systems. Travel is fast in the GFFA, but I don't think it's that fast.
(5) Tarkin seems to take Leia's deception as a personal betrayal.
(6) Vader seems to take it as a personal victory, because so there he was right. He also seems to rather respect the strength of her convictions, if not the direction of them.
(7) Obi-Wan doesn't know how such a short-range ship got "so deep in space" as their present locale, formerly known as Alderaan. Ergo, Alderaan was really deep in space. But also central enough to be a worthwhile target.
(8) According to the script, intercoms are called intercoms.
(9) Vader psychically senses Obi-Wan and then leaves, implying that the sense was vague enough that he didn't pinpoint Obi-Wan's identity and/or location immediately, that he didn't want to confront him there, or some other reason. We don't know if Obi-Wan senses Vader or not.
(10) Han has sort of official-looking red stripes on his pants.
(11) Stormtroopers are identified by alphanumeric codes, not names or ranks. (12) Han does not like subterfuge, which leads me to believe that he's not perfectly suited to the criminal life.
no subject
on 2011-04-02 01:50 pm (UTC)Is Luke squawking at the Death Star the moment where he gets his hand slapped back by Han, or was that earlier?
ITA on really wanting to see the fallout of Han's shift from skepticism to belief on the Jedi thing. But then again, I want more Han in general - ROTJ kind of drops his character arc in favor of silliness and gags. But he does have this great trajectory from amused-then-serious in ANH to edgy-and-uncommitted in ESB to serious-and-loyal by - really by the end of ESB, continuing onward.
no subject
on 2011-04-02 04:11 pm (UTC)I didn't notice Luke wearing them! I'll have to keep an eye out for that, just for the lulz.
The hand slap was earlier, back at the beginning of Part 8, when Luke asks "what's that flashing" and reaches out to touch it. <3
Re: Han, I totally agree. I always figured that's why Harrison Ford wanted him killed off -- because they couldn't think of anywhere for him to go after ESB, so he was just kind of there being a dude in distress or shooting things. I do like that there's no more of the squicky no-means-yes stuff in his interactions with Leia, and he actually gets that not everything is about him, but otherwise his arc just seems to be dropped altogether.
I also really like the trajectory from early ANH to late ESB; it's clear, intriguing, and I think makes him more than just another Lovable Rogue. And I think there are a lot of interesting places his character could go in some alt!ROTJ, or even after ROTJ.
I mean, just the central Skywalker plot would be interesting to explore wrt Han. He loves Luke and Leia, in
slightlydifferent ways, and Vader is their father. If Han has children they'll be Vader's grandchildren. In all probability, his family will be entirely composed of Jedi. Is he cool with that?It'd be interesting to know even little things. He has these hilarious expressions when he simply finds out they're siblings -- what is he thinking? What does he think when he finds out they're full-blown telepathic twins? How does it affect his place in the overall dynamic? *flail* So many things.