SSteinberg.SoftArts@MIT-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP (09/20/83)
Well I just returned from a Star Wars weekend in New York City
where it is possible to watch all three movies in glorious
70mm, blastophonic sound and real air conditioning. I mainly
watched ANH and TESB and have noticed a few things that I have
missed before.
1) When I first saw ROTJ this July I reran my tape of ANH and
noticed that there was ANOTHER continuing character not usually
mentioned. I probably wouldn't have noticed him except that he
also appeared in the movie Local Hero as the landlord Gordon
Urqhart. Dennis Lawson played Red-2 in ANH, Rouge-3 in TESB
and finally appeared as Red Leader in ROTJ. I think I remember
him being called Wedge Antilles (the late Captain Antilles
son?) in ANH.
I am not the only one who has noticed this. At TESB the
audience would applaud each continuing character as he/she made
an entrance. (Shades of Purim!) In any event, Rouge-3 was
roundly cheered by a slightly smaller group when he made his
appearance.
I have no idea of whether this makes him another Elisha Cook Jr
(the gunsel in the Maltese (not Millenium) Falcon) or Rula
Lenska (she was with Jesus in the Tomb of Golgotha in one of
those Passion Epics).
2) No one has pointed this out but it appears that Han and
Lando are brothers. I cannot account for their uncanny
resemblence any other way.
3) Where did Leia get the skirt she wore in the Ewok City? She
couldn't have packed it with her ("Gee, I'm off on a death
defying mission, I'd better pack my heels.") The Ewoks do not
have a branch of Hit or Miss or either the rebels or imperials
might have known about the Ewoks. (I mean, you can imagine
Darth Vader saying, "Hmm, there is a Hit or Miss specializing
in smaller sizes on this Moon of Endor, put up a "Special Sale"
sign and we'll decoy the female members of their raiding
party!") Does Leia sew? (It wasn't a wraparound.)
4) I got the impression from TESB that Yoda had isolated
himself pretty effectively on Dagobah and for all I knew had no
idea of what was going in politics at all. Needless to say he
was probably not personally threatened.
I am also not sure that the Emperor was using the Force in any
traditional way. For all we know he was some completely new
phenomenon, perhaps like the Mule in Asimov's Foundation
series. In ANH, Darth Vader, is seen as the sole believer in
the old religion! The inner circle on the Death Star would
know if the Emperor babbled about the Force a lot.
5) My final observation involves Leia. When we first meet her
she is in her early twenties, still a young woman, and she is
already a member of the Imperial Senate and well established in
the rebel underground. Do you realize what this means? It
means that since she has been hard at work since she was a
little girl. No afternoons off to go to a concert with her
friends, no long lazy vacations, no wild weekends at the beach
for her. She was out there reviewing policy statements,
writing legislation, developing rebel strategies, plotting
secret meetings, raising campaign funds for her first real
election and the like. Some childhood?
Duty was her watchword. When she escapes from her ordeal on
the Death Star what is her first thought at the rebel base?
Does she want a warm bath in a clean tub and a real meal? (I'd
hate to imagine the state of the bathroom on the Millenium
Falcon.) When that avuncular type with the white beard tells
her that he's heard about Alderan, does she even hint that
she'd like to lie down for a few minutes? No she tells him
flat out, duty first, and then she tromps off to help figure
out how to destroy the Death Star and run a security check on
Solo and Skywalker.
So what is the point of this? Leia deserves Han! It is about
time she had some fun for a change. I'm not saying that her
work was not important but rather that once every few months
she should take an evening off and catch a concert or just
lounge around the pool side. What about Luke? Luke is a Jedi
Knight; and worse, he is the ONLY Jedi Knight.
When little Leia was practicing elocution for her first public
speech, Luke was probably souping up his first flier with his
buddies in Anchorhead. While she was analyzing public opinion
polls, he was probably strafing a heap of Bantha bones. As
they pointed out in ANH, he always did crave excitement. So
now, when Leia finally gets a crack at her first afternoon off
in 25 years Luke is suddenly off on a duty trip. After all,
someone has to mop up the rest of the Empire and ensure
galactic stability and justice for the next 1000 generations or
so, but Leia deserves better. She deserves Han Solo.
There, I got that off my chest.