Tag: Unanswered Questions from Star Wars Movies

Another Unanswered Question from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Posted in Film, HumorTagged , ,

As I continue to move along with “unanswered questions” from the Star Wars movies, I’ve been making an effort to cast an eye toward some more of the outstanding questions from the new Disney©®™-era movies, and some day I might possibly do one about Rogue One.

If you’re really nice, I’ll write an unanswered question post about Solo: A Star Wars Story. But only if you’re really nice. Probably never The Last Jedi, though, because talking about that movie is like bringing up religion or politics at a dinner party.

How Long Did Finn Go without Drinking Water After Jakku?

Finn crash lands in the desert with Poe, and wanders to the outpost where he finds Rey. He’s dying of thirst, and drinks from an animal trough in desperation. He actually gets sick from the water for a moment, but continues to take some handfuls.

After that, we don’t see him drink again until they’ve arrived at Takodana. I’m just presuming he drank at the bar in Takodana, at least, before the First Order showed up to move the plot along.

But he didn’t drink on the Millenium Falcon. I maintain he couldn’t have. The Millenium Falcon had been sitting on a back lot, vacant, for years. That’s directly from the dialogue, too. Rey said it.

The odds, therefore, that there were any consumable items – especially potable water – on the Falcon are very slim. Even if there had been, they would have spoiled before our heroes ever got there. Of those things on Jakku that were consumable, they were scarce enough to be rationed out as small amounts.

So my follow up question is…

Shouldn’t We Have Seen Finn Display More Adverse Side Effects from Extreme Dehydration?

It’s just not satisfying to set up the idea that Finn went the better part of a day in the desert with a suprisingly-thick set of clothing on his body, and remedied that with four handfuls of rank water. He should have been delirious by the time they got in the Falcon, and barely able to stand when Han and Chewie showed up.

The trip to Takodana should have killed him.

I know, the easy answer is that it’s a space fantasy. Further, when we’re dealing with JJ Abrams’ construction of interstellar travel, no trip takes longer than one hour.

I just wish we’d seen him at least greedily gulp down something liquid in Maz Kanata’s bar. It would’ve been a great gag, honestly, to have him constantly thirsty through the rest of the movie. I mean, we committed to Marvel®©™-style humor in The Force Awakens, would stooping to grab a handful of snow because he was still thirsty have been out of place?

What are your thoughts?

finn and rey in star wars the force awakens a star wars movie called the force awakens with finn and rey in episode vii which is star wars the force awakens a movie with finn and rey.
“Please! I see a vending machine right over there! Please let me swing by and get a soda!”

Another Unanswered Question from Return of the Jedi

Posted in Film, HumorTagged , 2 Comments

I made available again a post that had stayed locked when my blog went active again recently. I hadn’t realized it was locked down still until I referred to it in a conversation with a pal. I think I made a joke in there somewhere but…whatever. The important point is, it’s called Luke Skywalker: Crisis Manager, and it was an attempt to put down the inane nonsense talking point that “Luke’s plan at the beginning of Return of the Jedi was sooooo convoluted.”

In short, the plan wasn’t convoluted. The opening of Return of the Jedi is a masterful display of crisis management as plan after plan (after plan) fails. Go on, read the post. I’ve said my peace.

As I revisited it, I realized there’s an unanswered question from Return of the Jedi to which I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer.

Was Luke Really Going to Assassinate Jabba?

When Luke appears in front of Jabba and things start to go sideways, then straight down into the Rancor pit, Luke calls a guard’s gun to his hand. A struggle ensues, a shot from the gun goes into the ceiling, and Luke drops into the pit. A Gamorrean follows suit, and action ensues.

Rancor in Return of the Jedi which is a Star Wars movie called Return of the Jedi a Star Wars movie with a Rancor in Return of the Jedi which is a Star Wars movie.
Honestly, can you imagine what this smelled like?

But I’ve wrestled from time to time with the idea of that shot. We all know that Lucas revisited Star Wars (fine, FINE, “A New Hope”) to get the showdown between Greedo and Han as close to a shootout as the footage could support (and the BluRay version works pretty damn good FWIW).

So why would Luke’s attempted cold-blooded assassination of a recalcitrant mob lord stand up to scrutiny? You could make the argument that Luke had reached the end of his tether and knew that Jabba wasn’t going to go for a deal no matter what.

But it seems so non-Jedi-like to just shoot him in the face. Aside from that, he’s still surrounded by a cadre of Jabba’s flunkies. Among them is even the most overrated Bounty Hunter of all time!

My one answer to this is that Luke wasn’t intending to fire in that moment, but to intimidate.  Had things escalated he may have fired still, but that precise moment was intended to show Jabba that he wasn’t screwing around. He wanted to get the mob boss to back down and talk it out.

Sure, we know that play still wouldn’t have worked, but it seems more “Jedi like” for Luke to try one last time to get Jabba to listen, before going for the literal kill shot.

In this explanation, the gun goes off incidentally as a result of the struggle. It wasn’t Luke’s best moment for thinking things through, but he also wasn’t trying to blast off Jabba’s face right off the bat.

Alternatively, Luke was trying to kill Jabba in that moment. It simply was the only way he knew how to handle things beyond that point, and then had to deal with the consequences of his own dark choice in a moment intended to be heroic. Like father, like son, as they say.

What do you think? Am I the only person who’s thinking about it this much?

The next thing you’ll be saying that I’m the only one who finds a fascinating parallel between Return of the Jedi and The Dark Knight Rises in the choice of music at a pivotal early moment when the hero is tested in darkness. The same music appears later when the hero is tested in different circumstances to complement the fact that the hero passes the test.

Boba Fett in Return of the Jedi which is a Star Wars movie called Return of the Jedi a Star Wars movie with Boba Fett in Return of the Jedi which is a Star Wars movie.
Let’s also not overlook that I took a jab at Boba Fett from a lingering desire to troll Star Wars fans who elevated him to a deified status based on armor, and his story got so mangled that I’m grateful Lucas rehabbed it in Attack of the Clones.