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Lit Why test carbonite freezing on Han?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by cthugha, Dec 2, 2012.

  1. cthugha

    cthugha Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 24, 2010
    IIRC, Vader used Lando's Carbonite-freezing plant on Bespin to test if it would be safe to use on Luke -- don't know if it's said so in the movie itself or in the novelization, but the Wook seems to agree with me on that point. So apparently (and his dialogue with Lando after freezing Han seems to confirm this) he wasn't sure if a human could actually survive being frozen in Carbonite...

    ...only later sources tell us that this self-same technology has been around an in use for millennia, as an (apparently common) method of burial, enabling pre-hyperspace long-range space travel, etc etc... and that Anakin Skywalker actually used it on himself during the Clone Wars.

    So... what gives? Has this point ever been addressed somewhere in canon? Or am I just too dumb to see the obvious fix?
     
  2. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    Vader calls the freezing plant on Bespin "crude".
     
  3. Chewbacca89

    Chewbacca89 Jedi Master star 5

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    Oct 25, 2012
    Perhaps he wasn't testing the carbonite itself, but testing the sub-par carbonite system in use on Bespin..
     
  4. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Yeah, that's pretty much how I saw it too, with him simply making sure the equipment was in working order.

    That dodgy Lando, slacking off on the annual electrical safety tests. [face_shame_on_you]
     
  5. Darth_Zandalor

    Darth_Zandalor Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 2, 2009
    No no, you see, Carbonite Freezing of people is a very common procedure. If The Clone Wars is to be believed, because you can't let the Original Trilogy have anything original anymore, can you?
     
    CT-867-5309 likes this.
  6. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Well, lots of things are common, but there's a difference between it being common to undergo surgery in a regulated hospital by a registered surgeon who's been through medschool, and having some local hick in a dusty cattle shed prod you with his rusty cow prod and inject you with some industrial tranquilliser used to hunt wild game.

    (This is, though, why I wish they'd stop copy-and-pasting the appearance of the carbonite freezing chamber into other stories and instead show some 'cleaner' facilities to mark the difference between a specialist facility for living cargo and one that's just some backwater packing shed for tins of frozen nerf steak or whatever.)
     
  7. _Catherine_

    _Catherine_ Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 16, 2007
    Again, it's like poetry, it's sort of, they rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.
     
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  8. Darth_Zandalor

    Darth_Zandalor Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 2, 2009
     
  9. _Catherine_

    _Catherine_ Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 16, 2007
    Hopefully it'll work.
     
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  10. cthugha

    cthugha Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 24, 2010
    Yeah, the EU is totally a fractal structure actually... everything's contained in everything. I bet you could reconstruct all the dialogue in the movies just from quotes in EU books, for example.

    Okay, so it's the crude facilities that do it. I guess I can live with that. Still I think it would've been neat to let Vader come up with a totally new method of keeping people quiet-but-alive on the fly, using the resources he can get. So much more badass than being nitpicky about industrial standards.
     
  11. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    I always figured the one at Cloud City was really just designed for freezing Tibanna, as Lando points out.

    I always wondered why they would not just stun blast him and then place binders on him, before a huge Storm Trooper escort brought him before the Emperor. [face_dunno]
     
  12. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    See this is why I liked the game Bounty Hunter, where freezing someone in a carbonite chamber nearly identical to the Bespin chamber did in fact kill the person.
     
  13. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

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    Oct 23, 2004
    Good old Bounty Hunter, so many reasons to love it.
     
  14. Chewbacca89

    Chewbacca89 Jedi Master star 5

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    Oct 25, 2012
    Never played that one...
     
  15. JoinTheSchwarz

    JoinTheSchwarz Former Head Admin star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2002
    Satal and Aleema Keto froze their relatives in carbonite back during the Sith War, because gratuitous OT references are like one-armed wampas: awesome and always welcome.
     
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  16. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    Technically that was molten carbonite instead of frozen carbonite, and they most certainly did not live through that.
     
  17. FatSmel

    FatSmel Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 23, 2012
    Because it wasn't supposed to have been done before, obviously.

    All those later sources kind of contradict the movies (as so often has happened with the EU). You can try and come up with whatever retcon you like to make it fit, and in the end you might as well just pick your favourite.
     
  18. Chewbacca89

    Chewbacca89 Jedi Master star 5

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    Oct 25, 2012
    I agree. Just pick whichever answer you like and go with it.
     
  19. cthugha

    cthugha Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 24, 2010
    Maybe Vader wanted Luke for himself and planned to hide his Force signature by freezing him in carbonite... or he thought Luke's post-Carbonite blindness and confusion would make the perfect moment to turn him to the dark side... unless of course Carbonite Luke was actually intended as a decoration for the Emperor's throne room. Which I would totally go for if I was a cackling end boss.
     
  20. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2010
    Beyond the 'crude' explanation for Vader choosing a live test, it also applies that the carbon freezing conditions used to preserve Tibanna gas are surely different from those needed to preserve a human being. Vader would have had to have Lando's facility adjusted and recallibrated (and indeed we see Ugnaughts working on the equipment in the film) and no doubt he wished to test and make sure no mistakes had been made in the process.
     
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  21. kataja

    kataja Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 4, 2007
    That's my take on it too. And you can understand Lando's line in ESB that way - at least from a certain point of view.
     
  22. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    So what I've taken from this thread is that I should play Bounty Hunter sometime.
     
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  23. RC-1991

    RC-1991 Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Dec 2, 2009
    It's a fun game, so yes. Frustrating at times, but fun.
     
  24. Darth_Zandalor

    Darth_Zandalor Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 2, 2009
    Read Open Seasons while you're at it for additional context.
     
  25. Jedifirefly5

    Jedifirefly5 Jedi Knight star 2

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    Sep 5, 2012

    AND he dropped from high orbit in carbonite and so did Obi-wan and Ahsoka.