I recently watched Star Wars with my son. He’s seven; this was his first time. I’m a touch older, I’ve probably watched it 30 times, though the last was more than a decade ago.
Rather than talk about the experience of watching Star Wars with my first born for the first time, which would make a pleasant and perhaps even moving article, I’d rather stay in character and complain about some minor flaws in an otherwise classic space opera.
- The Size of the Drinking Container in Luke’s House
This has always bothered me. For decades now. Look at it. LOOK AT IT. The container is barely any bigger than the cups. This makes no sense. Someone is thirsty, everyone else suffers. Who designed this fucking drinking set?
Luke: (After hard day at the evaporators; deep pours himself a refreshing glass of blue milk)
Aunt Beru: “Fucking hell Luke, what are the rest of us meant to drink?”
Luke: “Oh,” looks at the glass in his hand. “You could refill the jug at the fridge, I guess.”
Aunt Beru: “You refill at the fridge, you ungrateful orphan shit.”
- “I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations”
Here’s the thing: technically, an android is fully inorganic (like C-3P0, or RD-D2), whereas a cyborg is a human-machine hybrid. Like Darth Vader. Cyborgs usually started out human, then slowly have organic parts stripped away, either through choice (police officers 
upgrading themselves in Ghost in the Shell), or through injury (having a friend and mentor leaving you to melt in molten hot lava).
Which means C-3P0 should have been trying to negotiate between Obi-Wan and Darth during their sabre battle, rather than hiding in the cupboard with R2. Anyway, the point is either A: C-3P0’s main purpose is extremely limited, or B: his grasp of English is shit, and so maybe he really sucks at this translator job.
- Alderaan Got Blown Up, Kid
Consider this exchange between Han, Luke, and Obi-Wan:
LUKE
What’s going on?
HAN
Our position is correct, except…
no, Alderaan!
LUKE
What do you mean? Where is it?
HAN
That’s what I’m trying to tell you,
kid. It ain’t there. It’s been totally
blown away.
LUKE
What? How?
BEN
Destroyed… by the Empire!
HAN
The entire starfleet couldn’t destroy
the whole planet. It’d take a thousand
ships with more fire power than
I’ve…
This discussion has never made sense to me. Han assumes a whole planet has been blown away, and not that they have arrived at the wrong coordinates – which is surely the most logical solution.
Han doesn’t seem to believe, either, that it has been ‘blown away’ by some sort of man-made bombardment, because in the very next sentence he states that this would be impossible. So why does he instantly assume it has been ‘totally blown away’?
The only other possibility we may infer from Han’s statement is that he thinks it has been blasted by some sort of natural disaster – presumably a giant asteroid. This doesn’t make much sense either. Because, A: the sheer size of the object required to obliterate a planet (I’m no space-object-impact explaining guy, but I’d guess it’d have to be Pretty Fucking Big). And B: the space travel and radar technology of the Star Wars universe is clearly superior to our own (though we beat them in our advanced capacity to send each other dick pics – who the fuck needs a hyperspace drive?).
It’s a sure bet, therefore, that an asteroid half the size of Alderaan would be picked up and redirected way before it hit the planet.
Which means Han’s dialogue is essentially:
“The planet we were travelling to has been exploded by bad guys, and anyone who tells me so is a goddamn moron, because everyone knows that is impossible.”
- Fastest Ship in the Galaxy
What does this mean exactly? This has always bothered me, because the Millennium Falcon never outruns anything. It certainly doesn’t appear faster than the average TIE Fighter (in fact, the TIE Fighter that appears right after the conversation above does outrun the Falcon). The only time the Falcon ever outruns another ship is when Han pushes the hyperspace lever. Is this what he means?
Han: “Hey kid, when I push this lever here, this is the fastest ship in the galaxy.”
Luke: “You mean Hyperspace? But that speed is constant. By that logic, every ship in the galaxy is the fastest.”
Han: “Chewbacca – pull this motherfucker’s arms off.”
Chewie: “Raaaaaaargh.”
Luke: “Okay, okay, shit. It’s the fastest ship. I agree.”
Note: I haven’t watched the Han Solo film, (I find myself, these days, with limited motivation when it comes to the Star Wars franchise), so I suppose this ‘fastest ship’ claim could be explained there.
- Jawas are Slavers, Uncle Owen is a Slave Owner
I’m sure this has been discussed before (but I don’t consult the collective memory of Google before I write, so at least my ideas seem fresh to myself, if no-one else), but surely the Jawas are slavers? If we assume droids are sentient and self-aware – and we should, given C-3P0 and R2 are both of these things – then their being captured and sold raises some big moral questions (as an aside, the duo are more than simply sentient; they are, by turns, funny, and courageous, and cowardly, and show quirks of character that have made them beloved of Star Wars fans everywhere).
The droids required restraining bolts in case they try to free themselves, and later, Luke says of R2, when removing his restraining bolt, “I guess you’re too small to run away on me if I take this off.” Implying that some droids do try to run away (i.e. seek freedom).
Maybe Uncle Owen didn’t take moral philosophy at university, but surely the owning of a sentient being should raise some qualms in his conscience? Apparently not. Uncle Owen goes so far as to demand that Luke take R2 to Anchorhead to have its memory wiped when he finds out it may have a relationship to Obi-Wan.
Thus, perhaps we shouldn’t feel so bad when the Empire slaughters the Jawas. Maybe these are bad guys killing off worse guys, like Dothraki v Night King army, or Soviets v Nazis; that sort of thing.
- See-Threepio is a Bit of a Cunt
Given all this, there is a moment I hadn’t noticed until this most recent re-watch. After Uncle Owen buys two droids (C3-PO and a red garbage-can unit), R2-D2 does this cute little shuffle forward, trying to get away from the Jawas and join Luke and C-3P0. A Jawa then freezes R2, using the restraining bolt.
C-3P0 sees all this, says nothing, and walks away. There’s this moment, where he just turns and walks away from his long-time companion at a fucking slave auction. Holy shit. Now, sure, once the red R2 unit blows up, he suggests to Luke they take R2-D2. But by then, the damage is done, man.
Okay that’s it. It’s still a great film, all these years on. The crackling energy of the relationship between Han, Leia, and Luke is still palpable, four decades later. The opening shot of the movie is a iconic, and in general Star Wars is filled with classic pieces of dialogue and character moments. To think that nothing like this had ever been done before (in the medium of film, in any case) makes it even more remarkable. Whatever his multitude of flaws – flaws that become glaringly evident when he was given a free hand in the Prequels – George Lucas is a creative genius, who, in short, made magic.
With the corporate behemoth of Disney at the helm, we will never see such a film again. The Empire has won; the magic and vitality of the Star Wars universe squeezed dry by a hundred focus groups and a thousand executive committee meetings.
But, hey, we’ll always have Mos Eisley.
