Carbonite Dreams

In honor of International Geek/Nerd Day, I offer up this small theory regarding the Star Wars films. This came to me fully formed, so much so that I have spent time searching the innerwebtubes to see if someone else had come up with first. If so, then I bow to their genius, for it has lain in my subconscious like a nerdbomb, only exploding last night.

Therefore, let me posit this: That the Star Wars films ended with The Empire Strikes Back. The following film--and so far the concluding chapter of the entire saga--The Return of The Jedi--never happened.

In fact, Return of The Jedi was nothing more than Han Solo's dream while he lay encased in carbonite.

There is a surprising amount of evidence to support this.

On a purely cinematic level, Return simply doesn't fit with the narrative direction the series had taken. With A New Hope, there was a general sense of optimism and adventure to the film, where any losses the characters endured (death of relatives/planet/Jedi mentor/evil space station) were relegated to a few seconds of said characters looking sad before carrying on as if nothing had happened. A New Hope wasn't about the cost of relationships, about death, or anything related to maturity. It was an adventure for young children of all ages, both for the viewers and the characters on-screen. To that end, it succeeded very, very well.

The next film in the series, The Empire Strikes Back, takes a more mature perspective. The very title of the film indicates this story is about consequences. After destroying the Death Star and putting a dent in the Empire's fortunes, our heroes now have to deal with what happens next.

The first big battle in the film on the snow planet of Hoth serves a great contrast to the war over the Death Star: gone are tiny ships flying over a grey, industrial space station, replaced with real human beings fighting a trench battle against overpowering machines. There is no last second heroics of Luke Skywalker to save the day this time--in fact, his actions barely make a difference at all. This time, our heroes face defeat, and instead of victory, have to hope to escape.

In contrast to New Hope's focus on adventure and optimism, Empire deals primarily with pain. There is the physical pain of Luke surviving the encounter with the Wampa, Chewbacca and Han being tortured by Imperial forces on Bespin, and back again to Luke when he loses his hand to Vader in the film's climactic lightsaber battle. There is also the emotional devastation suffered by Leia and Chewbacca when Han is encased in carbonite and taken away by Boba Fett, and Luke's horror at realizing who his father is. Yet even before such obvious traumas, there is the undercurrent that runs through the film of our heroes simply worrying about each other.

For example, take Han Solo. Han worries about Luke when he doesn't return from patrol on Hoth, Han worries about rescuing his friends from the Imperial blockade, Han worries that he's made the right decision by trusting Lando, and even when he's facing possible death, Han worries about the fate of Leia and Chewbacca moreso than his own. Like everyone else in Empire, he is a man under great and telling stress.

Which is what growing up is about. After the childhood of A New Hope, Empire showed us the cost of friendships, it showed us how not to be selfish, and most of all, it showed us that there is a cost to everything. The Empire Strikes Back is a film about growing up, about starting to see the world with true eyes, about the adolescent realization that maybe the world isn't always a storybook that ends happily every time.

So, then, Return Of The Jedi should have been a film for adults. A movie that elaborated on the themes of cost, of having our heroes make decisions that they would not have been capable of in A New Hope, since both they and their audience had grown. Our heroes would now be more mature, both in terms of their relationships with each other and the problems they faced against the Empire. While still fun and entertaining, Return should have been the final counterpoint to the youth of the first film, a darker core to the story balancing both the series and the characters' growth.

Well, as we know, it wasn't. It had teddy bears and improbable revelations, slave girl outfits and ludicrous escapes. Return seemed horrified by the decisions made in Empire, and then fled screaming back to the playroom of A New Hope, slamming the door against the narrative demands made by the previous film. It aborted any movement forward, throwing cute at viewers who should have been ready for grand storytelling on an emotional, Arthurian level.

Which is why I like to think it simply didn't happen. That Han dreamt the whole damn thing.

Now that makes more sense than trying to accept Return as the next logical step in the series. As Han was flashfrozen in the carbonite slab, we've already seen how stressed the poor man was. So upon entering a dream state, his first thoughts would turn to his friends. Looking at Return in that way, it all makes sense.

THE RESCUE

Who else would Han have rescue him than Leia? It would prove how much she cared for him, and in the guise of a bounty hunter, the same mercenary scum who caught him in the first place? There is some deep, deep psychology there.

As for the slave outfit, well, Han's a guy. And since Leia is all about reserve, and the slave girl outfit isn't, it makes sense. And did I mention that Han's a guy?

As for the battle on the skiff, the clumsiness of Luke using his Jedi powers can be explained by Han's lack of understanding of the Force. As far as we know, Han has never met any of the 'powered up ' Jedi from the first trilogy, so he's never seen any of the derring do and high flying bullshit the old Jedi could deal out. Han has seen Luke wear a blastshield and swipe at a targeting ball. He may have heard a bit about Luke's summoning of the lightsaber on Hoth, but for the most part, Luke is still just a 'kid' to Han. So even if he's a Jedi, he's still that little whiny brat he picked up on Tatooine. He's never going be a threat to Han's own awesomeness.

And the rescue of Lando? Just Han telling himself how he is the better man. He would never turn his back on a friend, even if Vader had him by the scruff of the neck and his toes were scrabbling above the ground. Rescuing him from the Sarlaac just proves that point.

THE DAGOBAH SCENES

These could be problematic, since Han has never met Yoda or perhaps even heard of Dagobah. But...but... Yoda did look into the future in Empire and told Luke of what could transpire if he chose to go to Bespin. Yoda would have had to see Han and Leia in that vision, and perhaps that small contact left a mark on Han's subconscious. I'm going with that.

THE BATTLE FOR ENDOR

Again, Han shows his love of Lando as he envisions him as the one who destroys the Death Star, redeeming him from his betrayal on Bespin. Han chooses to go with Luke and Leia to Endor itself, both because he misses Luke (having not seen him since Hoth) and because this gives him more alone time with Leia. Chewbacca and the droids come along because they are really the only family Han truly has, so it's vacation time in the forest world.

Forests have great psychological value in dreams, being places of mystery and discovery. Here's where it get weird.

Perhaps because of the discomfort of carbonite, Han's subconscious begins to seek comfort from his childhood memories. Perhaps he had a teddy bear as a kid on Corellia, or even a stuffed Ewok doll. (Or knowing Corellians, a real stuffed Ewok.) So he populates the forest with them, and even has C-3P0 tell them bedtimes stories. Having created the perfect childhood playground, Han's turns his thoughts towards towards Leia and Luke again. In a discussion with Leia, he again does the right thing when he offers to step aside if Leia is in love with Luke. Han will simply not betray a friend. He then 'reveals' to himself that Luke and Leia are both brother and sister, primarily because he met the two of them at the same time (within hours, apparently) and they already shared a previous connection (Luke was trying to rescue Leia) that predates his ties with Leia himself. This also highlights Han's unease with his relationship with Leia, which can be traced back to his light hearted questioning about the feasibility of a relationship between the two of them seen in A New Hope. (Han asks Luke if he thinks a guy like him and a princess could work, which Luke quickly answers in the negative.)

The battle to get into the field generator--which is all about getting doors to open so that Han can lay a charge inside--speaks for itself.

In the end, the Empire is defeated by Han's friends, with the destruction of the Second Death Star seemingly being the final blow to an empire who still realistically has an entire galaxy under its control. This bit of unreality is just Han wrapping up the story for himself the way a child would, with fireworks and dancing bears. In the end, everything is as Han would have wanted it: his friends safe, his enemies gone, and the woman of his dreams warm in his arms.


While in reality, he still lies embedded in carbonite, in the dim light of Jabba's throne room.

At least, in my version he is....