Lit Han and Leia in the EU - A Discussion Thread (Life Debt spoilers must be tagged)

By contrast, I think it's important to remember Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia are three of the most singularly recognizable characters in fiction. If Superman or Batman shows up in your movie, he'll dominate your movie, ditto Wonder Woman. This is a movie about introducing three new characters to handle the bulk of an entirely new generation of stories and Rey has so far been amazingly accepted (Finn and Poe? Eh, not so much). They needed their own movie to breathe and grow before they jumped into things.

I also think the heroes of Yavin aren't in a good place in TFA but that was always going to appen and they were implied to be in a good place before. I get that others don't think so.

 

I actually don't think it was "always going to happen." I think it was commercially convenient.

 

Well, it's a rather nasty knot. Do you want to see the New Republic destroyed, Han and Leia's child corrupted, as well as Luke's students massacred with them helpless to stop it?

Because these movies have to have an ending where it is clear that the Big Three aren't going to be able to stop the baddies where the newbies can

It's not a good thing but it's the nature of the torch passing.

 

Or it's the nature of franchise building and box office receipts accumulating. The "torch passing" could have been accomplished any number of different ways. The strategy they employed was the most calculatingly commercial.

 

So, tell us how to do it otherwise?

 

I mean, there's a million other ways the story could have been told. Lucas allegedly had storylines drawn out where Han, Leia and Luke had limited appearances, Han and Leia's daughter was the main character, the Jedi Killer was unrelated, and Leia was a Senator and Han was a retired General. They could have had one of the new hero/heroines been a Solo, not had Han and Leia's ONLY kid go evil, not implied that their son went evil because they were bad parents, not split them up (their relationship only got about 5 minutes screen time in the movie and they didn't even reconcile so I don't even see the point of splitting them up), not had Han regress to being a smuggler....

I would have preferred to see the movie start out in a time of peace, where Leia is a Senator, or General of the military of the New Republic, Han doing his own thing, racing or running a shipping company, Luke with a Jedi Order and Han and Leia's daughter part of the Jedi Order. Then boom - new threat, Jedi Killer kills off a bunch of Luke's Jedi, First Order rises, Luke goes missing so Han and Leia's daughter goes out a quest to find him, running across characters like Maz, Finn and Poe in the meantime.

It's not like it's unheard of to have a sequel where the main couple stays together and friendships still remain the same, Harry Potter just did it.

I think JJ got so afraid of the backlash against the prequels with all the political and Jedi Order scenes he wanted to hit reset on the galaxy with a Rebellion 2.0, Empire 2.0, Death Star 3.0 with the Jedi Order already extinguished and the New Republic only showing up to be blown up. The natural progression from ROTJ to the sequel should have been a time of peace, Leia in the New Republic, Han in a respectable role, Luke with a thriving Jedi Order, then a new threat enters the galaxy and the heroes (the next generation) rush off to save it with Han, Leia and Luke in limited mentor roles. Instead, we got a rehash of ANH with a rehashed Rebellion, Empire, Death Star, and Han and Leia regressed to their ANH roles and the relationships between all three destroyed.

 

Han and Leia could have been together with Han working with the Resistance. Having him go back to smuggling to help the cause could have easily worked. Those two did not need to be estranged. He could still freight Rathtars and have Death Gangs after him because smuggling is shady.

 

Honestly, I think that makes an inferior story. "Oh, our son is damned to demonism and everything is fine." Bluntly, I think Han shows his love for his son by being so emotionally devastated.

 

Eh, difference of opinion. I think it was lazy. Anyway, unicorn has your different possible scenarios.

Besides, how is it better having Han running away from his problems? Maybe he should have been looking for Ben?

 

While I agree with a lot of thus, as I didn't like what was done with the OT characters, where is Luke's role in all of this??? If Leia is running a Jedi school and training students, where' s luke? Dead???

 

ChildOfWinds heh I had the same thought. Luke was driven into exile for about the same reason Han and Leia split up, doesn't make sense to fix one but keep the other.

And given the ages of the Big 3, it wouldn't have even been hard to explain why they were sending a new generation to take up the fight (well except for Jedi Master Luke, but the missing plot would give him a similar role as he had in TFA).

I didn't dislike TFA and I really loved some of the new kids, but I have yet to read a convincing argument for why everything just had to go to complete **** for the OT characters.

 

I just noticed something. Since the "reboot", we really haven't had a Big Three novel, so to speak.

We've had Heir to the Jedi, but that was Luke-centric, with a little bit of Leia and no Han.
We've had Aftermath: Life Debt with more Han and Leia, but no Luke.
We've had Bloodline, which was Leia-centric, some Han, but little to no Luke.

 

The main Star Wars comic is the place to go for OT-era Big 3 adventures. Unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll see Luke in a post-ROTJ novel (or post-ROTJ anything) until after VIII.

 

I know. It's just odd that after years in the Bantam/Del Rey Legends publishing, where we had tons of Big Three-centric novels, we've yet to have one.

 

I have to agree with him
http://furiousfanboys.com/2016/12/force-awakens-isnt-retroactively-terrible-not-classic-either/

 

Well, yup Jedi Jessy. I agree with that article too. The actual movie isn't that bad, but our OTP and the Big3 were the collateral damage in the pursuit of nostalgic feels and franchise building.

 

I think they're obviously trying to hide what Luke's been up to post ROTJ pre TFA (perhaps because Rey is his daughter?) so we're unlikely to get any books post ROTJ about Luke until after Episode VIII.

It would be awesome to see a Luke Skywalker and Shadows of Mindor like book immediately post ROTJ, but it looks like in the new canon Luke immediately leaves and goes off on his own. Which seems to be against the "In time you'll learn that power too" speech in ROTJ from Luke to Leia...

It's also too bad Leia immediately gets pregnant after ROTJ, because pre-Ben post ROTJ novels with the Big Three having an adventure would have been fun to read.

 

Though that case does involve a complete timeline rewrite.

 

I admit, as much as I love the Big Three adventures, I also like that they had relatively peaceful lives until the First Order.

 

Poe comic #9

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

C-3PO doomed Han Solo. Ha ha lol. That's hilarious.

 

Sigh, reading that makes me sad. I wasn't sure how public it was that they had split up or how much Leia knew about what he was up to.

I imagine she felt incredibly disappointed and angry when she found out he went back to being a smuggler - maybe a bit of "was the man I married a fraud? Did he always want to be a smuggler and only pretended to be respectable for my sake?" I'm also curious if Leia locked him out of their account or what happened to their joint finances.

 

Probably she knew and maybe she understood him. C3PO may not know that Han has returned to smuggling after his own son became a serial killer, Leia must have kept a lot of information away from all

 

I like to think there's more to the story even if I'm being ridiculously optimistic.

 

classic Threepio showing no tact and blurting out people's personal information. no wonder his memory was wiped so many times.


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