CT Turns out Lucas was probably telling the truth about his Kessel Run "parsec" explanation

I want you to actually look at and consider the information I'm showing you instead of ignoring it and insisting that I'm somehow trying to prevent you from considering something else. I assume you're referring to Han Solo's line, since that's the only other information you could possibly be talking about. Yeah, I literally addressed that in like every single one of my posts in this thread. Go figure.

 

I'm talking about actual real life. Lucas is an American. American's swap time and distance terms regularly. You're telling me to ignore that fact when coming to a conclusion and I'm not going to. You're just going to have to accept that.

It's time for you to "move along".

 

In general I've never understood why a lot of people's default assumption is that George intended parsec to be a unit of time and was simply mistaken rather than their being some reason that a fast ship could somehow cut some amount of distance off of the Kessel Run, given that we don't know anything about what the Kessel Run itself actually entails. A possibility sure, but I'm going to need something more concrete than a line sounding a little unnatural in a universe where they also go ".5 past light speed" and such before I declare that someone I've never met is simply being ignorant. I mean, as this thread has already shown, the natural reading of "Approaching target at one point three parsec" would suggest that parsec was a unit of speed. But that's not at all congruent with the idea that a faster ship makes a Kessel run in fewer parsecs. To me that rules out that he generally thought that a parsec was a unit of time. Either he used specifically because he wanted to describe a distance(ie correctly), or he decided that parsec was just a fun word to use and he was going to have its GFFA definition mean whatever allowed him to get it into the movie without giving a single darn about what it means here on Earth. Either way I don't think he said "Oh shoot! Really? Why didn't anybody tell me??" when the first person pointed out that a parsec is a unit of distance.

 

I've always thought Battlestar Galactica's time units including both centons and microns, was a nod to the perception that Lucas was using "parsec" for a unit of time.

The Star Wars: From The Adventures of Luke Skywalker novelization uses the phrase "ship that did the Kessel Run in less than 12 standard timeparts". So IMO it's clear that it isn't just the perception of certain watchers with no evidence - readers in particular were given good reason to believe that Lucas meant parsec as a time unit.

"Cutting distance off the Kessel Run" was an after-the-fact EU rationalisation. Though IMO a good one.

 

But that doesn't matter, because the context makes it clear that he's not doing that! The context, man! Do you want to maybe address that at some point, or no?

This is like banging my head against a brick wall.

Lucas didn't write the novelization, Alan Dean Foster did. Foster would have been working from a version of the fourth draft, and he seems to have taken it upon himself to "correct" Lucas's mistake. While Lucas would have proofread the novel, there's no particular reason to think this is something he wouldn't have overlooked. We know from other novelizations that have directly contradicted Lucas's statements about the films that his editing of them is less than exhaustive.

 

You aren't the final authority on what does and doesn't matter. I'm done with this conversation. Stop tagging me please.

 

Why don't you try explaining why the things I posted don't matter? Use your words. I've extended you that courtesy.

 

I never stated that what you posted doesn't matter. I even said that...

...which means that if your evidence was THE ONLY EVIDENCE then you'd be correct. You're the one in here telling me that I can only use the evidence that you have provided and can't use anything else.

Let me use an example. Before 2007 when THE MAKING OF STAR WARS was published, people widely assumed that Greedo was played by a woman because the only photos widely available at the time were of the actress who wore the costumes for the pick-up shots that came after the initial Cantina scene's were filmed. But after 2007, we found out that a man was in the Greedo costume during the initial cantina scenes and a woman was in the costume for the pick-up shots.

So imagine if I came in here and stated that ONLY A WOMAN played Greedo and said that you had to agree with me based off the photographic evidence I was providing and that you WERE NOT ALLOWED to submit any further evidence.

Because that's what you're doing. You have submitted one piece of evidence and are expecting me to ignore everything else.

 

Well, no. I've submitted quite a bit of evidence, in the form of multiple lines in multiple scripts indicating that the use of "parsec" in this instance was, beyond any reasonable doubt, being used as a measurement of distance. It is the most natural reading of the line in a context where the character speaking is adjusting his rangefinder and telling others to do the same, followed shortly afterward by one of the characters he is speaking to having a problem with his rangefinder and expressing its malfunction in the same "[number] point [number]" format that the first character just used. I also went through every prior draft to look for instances of that "[number] point [number]" format being used and found that is almost always used in flight combat scenes to indicate position of target, and not once used to indicate a time measurement. Again, I would classify all this as more than "one piece of evidence," and I think most reasonable people would agree.

When you say I'm expecting you to ignore "everything else," I can only assume you mean the one single line uttered by Han Solo in the fourth draft, in contrast to the multiple lines in multiple drafts that I've used as supporting evidence. I have, in fact, addressed this multiple times, pointing out that there is a logical explanation for this which Lucas has provided. On its own, I'm not sure how this constitutes compelling evidence in your favor.

Any reason to doubt the explanation Lucas has provided as a post hoc justification evaporates given the fact that he seems, beyond much reasonable doubt, to have used the term correctly in this other instance that we are discussing. In order to prove me wrong, you'd have to explain why I am mistaken in thinking that the context of his other use of the word "parsec" does not indicate beyond much reasonable doubt that he's used it correctly. So far, you have steadfastly refused to address this.

 

Cutting distance off the Kessel Run isn't an after-the-fact EU rationalization, it's exactly what the sentence implies as stated in English. The EU rationalization is how a Kessel Run would exist such that a fast ship would be able to complete it in less distance. My point is that I don't understand how "George simply misused English" is any more obvious of an assumption to make than that he meant exactly what he wrote. A possibility, absolutely, but not having been there or knowing the guy myself I'd lean towards giving him the benefit of the doubt rather than just straight up claiming that I know what he meant better than he did.

 

No. That's not what I mean. You're assuming that's what I mean because you're not paying any attention to what I'm saying. You already made that assumption here...

...and I already provided an answer here...

Which is why I already said I'm done talking about this because you're actively ignoring anything that doesn't support your bias.

I've already said WHY. If that isn't enough to sway your opinion on the matter, that's fine with me. I didn't come in here to change your mind, merely came in here to point out that your evidence wasn't the only evidence that was admissible. YOU are the person trying to make it seem like your evidence AND ONLY YOUR EVIDENCE is all anyone can use to decide on an opinion. But again, and I cannot stress this enough, stop tagging me in this conversation. I am done talking about this. If you tag me again, I will have to get the mods involved.

 

If he made it up, he came up with it awful quickly. He was already talking about it an internal lore document he was creating as guidance for tie-in authors. This entry is dated August 11, 1977, just a few months after the movie came out:

“It’s of Corellian design, from Crell, and is used primarily by the Corellian spice shippers. They transport their goods to the center of the Empire. The Corellian ship is a very easy ship to know. It’s a very simple ship, very economical ship, although the modifications he made to it are rather extensive—mostly to the navigation system to get through hyperspace in the shortest possible distance (par-sects)."

(And before anyone gets on his case about misspelling it, all these documents would have been typed up by a secretary from Lucas's terrible handwriting, so who knows if it was even his mistake.)

The idea of navigation computers, and the plotting of precise coordinates to avoid stellar masses, being an integral part of successful hyperspace travel was of course memorably established in the movie:

BEN
Well, how long before you can make the jump to light speed?

HAN
It’ll take a few minutes for the navi-computer to calculate the coordinates.

LUKE
A few minutes!! At the rate they’re gaining….

HAN
Traveling through hyper-space isn’t like dusting crops, boy. Without calculations we could pass right through a star or bounce to near a supernova. And that would end our trip real quick.

So at this point, what's the balance of evidence saying here? That Lucas just happened to have already provided an involved explanation in the film's dialogue that handily accounts for why Han would measure the speed of his ship using distance? That he was so mortified of being made aware of his error within three months of the movie coming out that he frantically came up with a convenient technical explanation in an internal document meant only for tie-in authors? That, despite seeming by all indications to have used the term properly elsewhere in an earlier draft revision, he was actually using it incorrectly there too?

Or maybe he's just telling the truth, and he really did come up with it as a funny world-building detail that flew over most people's heads?

e:

What did you mean, then? I've reviewed all your earlier posts and I can't find you talking about anything except your non-sequitur about Americans sometimes substituting distance for time, which is irrelevant because the context makes it clear that Lucas is not talking about time.

Again, your point only has relevance if there's ambiguity in how the term is being used. There is no ambiguity, the context makes it abundantly clear that distance/position is being talked about, for the reasons that I've stated and you've refused to address.

I would further point out that it would be rather nonsensical for Blue Leader to be indicating time to approach in parsecs, given that they are clearly only mere minutes away at most, and other characters have expressed time intervals in terms of "minutes" in the script multiple times--for instance, in the dialogue exchange reproduced above.