CT Chewbacca and Leia on Bespin

Every time I watch "The Empire Strikes Back", I'm amazed at how Chewbacca and Leia had screwed up during their time on Bespin. I realized they were upset over Han being handed over to Boba Fett. But their reaction to it - Chewie trying to kill Lando and Leia supporting his murderous action - makes me wonder why very few people had criticized them for it.

 

It's one of those small moments that I don't particularly like, but I'm so used to it that it doesn't matter to me (and the fact that is so quick sells it).
Chewie's reaction is sort of logical, but Leia's reaction is poorly acted and Lando speaking as he chockes feels fake to me.

It's one of those things that if it was added of the SE a lot of people would criticise it, but because it was there all along it's just accepted.

 

They were going through a confusing time and on edge.

 

I don't think Chewie was ever portrayed as a very rational character, so his reaction was fine. I agree Leia's reaction was a bit weird though, she seemed more emotional about Han's possible death than the destruction of Alderaan.

 

That's because Leia was an Imperial spy this whole time!

 

Leia's reaction is weird because, while Chewie is trying to strangle Lando (which takes way too long for a wookie anyway), she is able to talk to Lando with a controlled anger and even a bit of irony ("oh, we understand, don't we Chewie...."). She's neither completely out of herself with anger, nor is she sad.... she just seems mildly annoyed, no more than when a walking carped was walking in front of her.
For me, her acting is off, Chewie trying to kill Lando seems forced (not the reaction, but the act itself), and Lando being able to talk while being strangled seems fake.
But I guess the filmmakers just needed something between being liberated by Lando and rushing off to rescue Han, and it had to be about 30 seconds long, so they did that scene. Not the end of the world.

 

I’ve always been a bit puzzled by her lack of reaction to the destruction of Alderaan. I suspect the reason for that boils down to wonky writing — Luke’s whining to her about Ben aboard the Falcon comes across as kind of cringe for that same reason. I can sort of buy the idea in-universe that the magnitude of what happened was so overwhelming and unimaginable as to actually defy immediate grief. Han’s entombment in carbonite is a little more immediate and comprehensible by comparison.

 

I guess that's just how she lashes out. She was yelling at Lando, which could draw attention (of any storm troopers who might be nearby) to herself. Or if Lando drops unconscious, I don't see how they're going to get out of Bespin. Her actions were very irrational, so I believe she was completely taken over by emotions, despite the appearance.

Hmm... so basically she might've been in denial phase in ANH? I guess that's possible... it was the first time in galactic history that a whole planet was destroyed like that too, and she only saw it from a distance, as opposed to seeing the deaths of each person.

 

Yeah, that quote, so often misattributed to Stalin, about a million deaths being just a statistic comes to mind. I think it was probably to much to be reckoned with. Even personal griefs can take on a weird surreal air in the immediate aftermath that leaves you feeling like you’re seeing the loss at a distance. I can’t imagine what it would be like to watch your entire world — literally — disappear from view like some demented magic trick. I wonder if this is the kind of thing that might come crashing down on her later, like if she wants to contact Bail at some point after ANH and has the space to process the fact that she’ll never get a reply - there’s nothing visible to grieve over, just a howling void.

I wonder about her state of mind immediately prior to that as well, given the torture she was subjected to on the Death Star. She might have already been exhausted and functioning in a kind of psychological survival mode that put much of her sense of loss on the back burner. I have my gripes with the sequel trilogy’s handling of the Big Three, but I can absolutely buy its idea that part of Leia’s strength in the Force manifests as an iron will.

 

Don't forget the origins of Star Wars: 30's serials. The character's reactions and acting are nearly always a bit stylized into that faster, more intense + whimsical direction.

In this scene neither Chewie nor Leia truly intend to kill Lando- Chewie, the muscle, is letting off his frustration at Lando's betrayal and Leia, the brains, uses the situation, now that Lando isn't able to smooth talk himself out of anything anymore, to pump him for information in an effort to save Han.

 

I don't see Leia trying to pump information out of Lando. She was just lashing out in anger, and only decided to stop after Lando offered to help save Han.

 

It looked as if Chewie was trying to strangle Lando to death to me. It's amazing that both he and Leia were allowing their emotions to get the best of them and they were never called out on it . . . not by Lucas, the media and many of the fans.

 

not sure Chewie has that kind of self control. It did seem kind of cold of Leia. And ESB is my fav. movie.

 

It's best not to think about these types of things. Just enjoy the movie for what it is.

Now...if we apply that logic, 90% of threads would be locked, and user traffic would go up! I'm a genius and therefore should become mod.

 

I really like the relationship between Chewie and Leia on Bespin. I like how the shared loss results in closeness and protectiveness between them. They become family.

I’d much rather watch Leia watch Chewie strangle Lando than watch Leia and Chewie walk right by each other after Han’s death.


Edit:

Chewie just lost his bro, the guy who saved him from slavery, the guy he swore a life debt to, and Chewie could do nothing about it. He was ready to die in a completely futile attempt to stop it, but in the end he stood there and watched. I imagine Chewie wanted to murder someone at that point. Who better than Lando? Does anyone doubt that Chewie would like to rip Lando’s head off at that point? Remember, this guy loses his temper easily. He was ready to rip Luke’s arms off when Luke tried to put binders on him.

I don’t see Leia as a paragon of pure, innocent good, she’s a freaking rebel. She is capable of murder. She is capable of watching murder. Especially if the target is an enemy. She won’t murder friends. She’s unlikely to murder innocents in all but the most extreme circumstances. Lando is no innocent in her eyes, he betrayed them. He betrayed Han, the scoundrel who became a good man largely due to his feelings for her. It would be tragic for a reformed scoundrel, her reformed scoundrel, to be taken down by one of his scumbag former buddies. Remember, Leia never trusted Lando. Part of her motivation may have been to protect Han from the dangers of his former life. I think she was angry enough to be content to watch Chewie strangle the life out of Lando. Maybe she would have stopped Chewie at the last second. Maybe not.

 

I’ve always found their reaction to be natural, considering the friendship they had formed with Han up until his freezing. Lando kept his mouth shut about the Imperial occupation and had to earn their trust.

 

Again, I feel like there is a difference between the 30's serial stylized, whimsical direction and most other films. Think of Solo, when Han and Chewie meet. Chewie was gonna have Han for dinner, yet the scene is to a point whimsical and to move the story forward. No point in wasting precious screen time dealing with the aftermath of that scene on Bespin, with either Chewie or Leia dealing with their shame letting their emotions get the better of them, for nearly strangling Lando. Leia, who's been lecturing Han about his people skills earlier in the prison cell, has finally had enough.

In what other way should they have gotten the info about the east platform? Having Lando just mention it as he frees Chewie from the cuffs? That's kind of uneventful. Films are about conflict and our heroes are upset at Lando's betrayal. Why trust his word at all after that? Lando just wanted to leave with Chewie and Leia, and not attempt to save Han. Had Chewie not strangled Lando, he would have likely not mentioned the east platform at all and saved himself first. It's how Lando is depicted in Rebels and Solo. At the end of TESB he begins his redemption and is fully redeemed with the selfless act of leading the mission against the second Death Star.

 

Their reactions may have been natural, but it was also wrong. The script should have called Leia and Chewie out on their behavior or allowed the pair to realize that they had let their emotions to get the best of them. Lucas could have ensured this in "Return of the Jedi". Instead, he gave them a free pass. I feel this was a mistake and did nothing for their characters.

Lando was redeemed for saving Bespin's inhabitants from destruction at the hands of the Empire? He was supposed to think more of Han and Chewie than them?

 

He does shoot Han and Leia's son after he murders the former...so, yeah there's that.

 

That's true. Really insightful post. Chewie is Han's best friend and he's friends with Lando. Leia does have a temper. She'd got alot of Anakin in her and it shows. Actually Anakin is the one who put them in this situation, but imagine young Anakin if Lando has done to Padme what he did to Han.

I totally understand their emotions. And when Lando switched sides he did it all at once. Leia and Chewbacca had a lot to work through.

True. But with Alderaan there are other events going on and Leia is still in the middle of it. Leia is in part responsible for the planet. She is also still protecting the Rebels. She tries the fake out of the old base. So even if she gave up the real base her home would be destoryed. She is still the prisioner of Tarkin and needs to get word to the Rebels so someone can destroy the Death Star. I think that is also built into her reaction over Alderaan - that other planets will soon suffer the same fate.

Han is a much smaller and more personal trauma. In a way it makes sense Leia would be more emotional and less calculating over something like that. Maybe even more so after Alderaan.

What you bring up also shows how much Leia matures between movies. In Return of the Jedi the princess has much more tempered way of leading.

 

Alderaan, strategic resilience and maintaining awareness of the broader picture. Lando, tactical indulgence. Not a good look. To rectify momentary indulgence against just about every other depiction of the character ("decisive" comes to mind as a descriptor), one has to think that she was measuring the pressure and would step in before too long. Without that extra viewer effort, it could become embarrassing to contemplate the hypothetical of what happens now if Chewy actually killed their "one way" off Cloud city. She took initiative breaking out of the Death Star after the barriers to entry had been lowered. Someone keeping tabs on her demonstrated skills throughout OT period media could be forgiven for visualizing her and Chewy, sans Lando, making it to some docking bay and commandeering a ship. But then Vader had taken steps to secure Cloud City, whatever that entails. Leia has shot her way out of problems. If the Saturday Morning Serial nature of Star Wars required that Leia and Chewy get off Cloud City by themselves, that would happen. There happens to be a fine array of details that support the plausibility of that outcome, so that one need not resort to the serial defense of something outrageous.

The non-vanishing residue of the problem is the moral residue. A viewer has to think that the creatively correct Leia would not stand by past a point of no return, even if literally allowing Lando to die would not present a logistical problem to her chief objectives, which is preserving the Rebellion. If Lando's plan remained in force and he got both her and Chewy off Cloud City, she could still get back to the Rebellion. In either case, with or without Lando, she had no genuine strategic problem. No matter what she personally thought of Lando, she could likely save herself a firefight, or one too many, by leveraging what he knew. The good cop bad cop routine, which means achieved an end, isn't morally justified on the grounds of aiding her cause, the Rebellion.

On the detail of her wrath at betrayal, the ESB deleted scene between her and Luke, prior to Han coming into the medical center, shows that her first loyalty is to the cause. The scene shows exasperation at heretofore allies abandoning what she thought was their commitment to her cause (And then the corridor scene Leia v Han commitment to the cause). SW77 demonstrated that her loyalty to the cause is greater than her loyalty to truth, because Tarkin correctly caught out that she lied to him. Lando, some random guy, betraying Han, some random guy who demonstrated useful loyalty to her cause that she has started to get along with, could in a context devoid of her arch nemesis, The Empire, have escaped her wrath with less good cop bad cop. The entry of The Empire into a betrayal of Han (involving betrayal of truth) converts this local garden betrayal into something more existential. Saving one's skin from a juggernaut, at the obvious expense of someone else, is a problem she won't stand for. (She stayed in Echo base down to the last three headquarters staff.) Leia can heap upon Lando all the Ahab of broken loyalties to her cause. Lando is not with her cause, so in a crude metric he is against her cause. Strangling Lando is a little bit, symbolically, like strangling Vader. Lando failed her for the last time.

 

I never felt like Chewie was actually trying to kill Lando. If he was, Lando would have already been dead.

The second Vader set foot on Cloud City, the dream was over. Cloud City's independence was history, no matter what kind of deal Lando made. It was Lando's desperation to hold on to his position that kept him from realizing this. He should have done the right thing from the beginning, because things were just going to keep getting worse and worse until he did.

It's the same as with Luke in A New Hope. Luke thinks he has no choice, that he has to stay on the farm to help his uncle, but he's just ignoring reality. Eventually, the universe backs him into a corner and forces him to make a choice.

 

I don't think Chewie has any way of determining how close to unconsciousness and death Lando was. He choked him for quite a while, and I didn't see any indication that he intended to let go soon.

 

Yeah but it's a movie.