Solo Vehicles/Tech in the Han Solo Movie

The opportunity cost of a lost hauler could turn into a lost hauler and a lost surface vehicle or asset. Depending on the value of the vehicle or asset, there could have been justification for the need to replace lost haulers in real time, so as to always have reserve capacity. It might have been worth it to give at least some a hyperdrive.

The movie does not explicitly say that haulers were used to move conveyex box cars from surface to orbit. What the movie does explicitly say is that the hauler had cables that fit perfectly, as if it was designed, to fit into the anchors of a conveyex box car. Hardly serendipity. So the Empire knows that the hauler can haul conveyex box cars to orbit.

The upper limit on the value of a box car is also explicity given in the movie, 100 "key grams"? of refined coaxium, which Han ultimately says is worth 60 million credits, and which someone (Qira?) says is enough to power 12 Star Destroyers. So it is possible for the Empire to have forseen "for want of a nail" scenarios in a case like this. It is possible, however unlikely, that 12 Star Destroyers' worth of fuel is stranded on a planet with no easy evacuation because all the haulers they brought with them in the hold are broken, and it'll be a few days before another Star Destroyer can heave into view bringing that single one necessary hauler to finish the job.

(A useful comparison is that the YT-1300, which can push a lot of freight in space, should not be able to deliver one of those freight box cars to a planet's surface. This is more or less implicit in the size of the conveyex box cars which are scaled more or less to what the YT-1300 could push. The hauler was able to heave up one box car under good conditions, but was not able to pull it away from 5 speeder bikes, so that sets an upper limit on its total lifting power, about one box car plus a little safety factor.)

One thing I'm not clear on because it is not overdemonstrated in the movie is whether or not Disney is attempting to retcon or establish that coaxium is the fuel sine qua non for ALL ship types. Without overdemonstration, and going solely by the Star Destroyer quote, my default interpretation is that the best analogue to coaxium is highly energetic nuclear powered submarine and aircraft carrier fuel. The film demonstrates that the MF is able to utilize a few cc's of *unrefined coaxium in its fuel system, and the added energy density makes the difference whether or not it can escape the maw. It has to be noted that the MF was at full power - the MF was not out of fuel, itself, whatever it itself uses. Logically, the MF does not use coaxium. If it ran on refined coaxium, (and it had not run out of fuel,) its refined coaxium would already have had a higher energy density than the unrefined cc's added. Therefore, if Disney is attempting to purport that coaxium is the universal fuel, which it does not necessarily explicity assert in the opening crawl, someone has screwed up in the writing.

If AT-ATs and similar size classes DO run on refined coaxium, in the same family of fuel as Star Destroyers run on, but maybe different 'octanes', then it is useful to invoke 'want of a nail' scenarios like the Panzer divisions in Battle of the Bulge that ran out of fuel. Without an overdemonstration that coaxium is used in civilian applications like the civilian YT-1300, the complexion of the train heist is best expressed not as Old West gunslingers stealing tactical, commodity fuel -which we seek out as an origin story for our Old West heritage hero- but non-state actors, one level up from mere 'organized crime', teetering on modern parlance of 'terrorist', stealing specialty, strategic fuel (that carries with it a tiny bonus of the spectre of nuclear proliferation).

Running anachronistic American West trains in an age of anti-gravity surface-to-surface and surface-to-orbit capability, so as to bring into sharp focus the extreme value of the coaxium, heightens appreciation for what can go wrong if there are no haulers. So, hyperdrives. And if they need to dwell in hyperspace for OT durations, they might as well get showers.

Perhaps only the haulers assigned to the mud planet had showers.

 

Hm. I proceded from a faulty assumption that, if all haulers were broken, the coaxium could not simply be removed by Imperials by hand and transported separately in smaller ships. There is no particularly crucial support system in the box car that absolutely demands that coaxium be transported that way. Refined coaxium is represented as thermally stable, so, no need to refrigerate it in the box car. It's not as delicate as Han makes out; He and Dryden and Qira all handle vials of it, so no dire need for shock absorbers in the box car to encase it. It is in no way implied to be radioactive or toxic. No need for special safety equipment in a box car. So a high opportunity cost for losing all one's short-range haulers is not established.

IF there is some resource that is best transported by this type of box car. An essential, hard to replace resource. Essential for the war effort. Not reducable or separable. Difficult to manage. Not easily transportable. THEN there are grounds to argue that haulers might have to be able to move through hyperspace to where they are needed, on their own, and not be entirely dependant on a mother ship.

So the film does not present a rationale for why a hauler needs a hyperdrive. Rationale for a head with shower disappears as well. It's unsatisfying.

 

Maybe changes to the movie and reshoots cut some vital piece out of this puzzle.

 

Some senator forced pork-barrel legislation through to sell unneeded hyperdrives to the Empire. Those things happen.

 

That is not a bad idea. Senate was still functioning. Going by the WWI pictures of misplaced patriotism ("The Empire needs you!" <esplode>), patriotism in the Empire may have been in the ascendant at this moment. A cynical Senator could look to his own re-election without regard for what happens in the greater body politic. A Senator that had a sip of kool-aid could have been helping the cause by helping himself, or vice versa.

-Maybe changes to the movie and reshoots cut some vital piece out of this puzzle.

I would like to believe that Ron Howard was being factual when he said he shot the script he was given. The voluminous set for the shower scene certainly does not look like it is a facility that is sensibly or economically installed inside the hauler. The later scene where Chewy says growl and Han retorts, "You're touchy" requires a moment like this. The Bettany scenes were reshoots. The shower set *looks like it belongs in a building, or in a large ship. It's too big to sensibly fit in the Falcon, even though I got the impression the Falcon was getting a TARDIS treatment with that master cabin. (It would decidedly fit on Dryden's tower yacht.) I am left with the impression that the set was created purely for the visuals of the rain falling from the sky, to wash away the sins of the past. Or, the design of the set is to explicitly overdetermine the idea of starting over.

 

I'm sure he is being factual. Not everything in a script or that the director puts in front of the camera ends us in the movie. I

I'm wondering if at some point Becket had his own ship to transport the lifter. Something big enough to have the shower, carry the AT-ST Hauler, and have the extra weapons and bandoleer for Chewbacca. Also Han's jacket, shirt, and pants...... Maybe their was a stop off scene deleted from the film. A scene where the team preps for the train heist and buys supplies. Han can pick out his clothes and get a shower.

Then again the shower is a scene needed out of necessity, otherwise Han and Chewie will be covered in mud in the next 15 minutes of the movie. And like you said it creates a nice character beat. I really like when Han and Chewbacca stand outside the Hauler on the cat walk with the air breezing past them. The AT-ST Hauler is so very much more than just a Hauler.

 

The hauler may have a shower because it’s being used on Mimban, an insanely muddy place...

That said, a few weeks back I joked about being surprised that the hauler having a shower hadn’t become a fan controversy yet.

You didn’t let me down, Hernault.

 

I imagine the hauler was a long distance ship. Where you'd spend days or weeks at a time in travel. It would make sense to have a shower in it. We never really see practical facilities like showers or toilets in star wars.

 

How about.... It's the F-35 of all haulers. The Imperial Navy needed it to do things, like have long linger, long range, hyperdrive. The Imperial Army needed it to do things like lift two fully loaded box cars. The Mud Trooper division also needed it to do things like clean mud off. It was all things to all people, but it couldn't pull a single measly 50 ton box car away from 5 scrappy speeders. That helps achieve 4K resolution on secondary reality. Is it live or is it Memorex.

The tonal problem with the shower, that is solved by my idea that it is directorial license to essentially do a screen wipe via an idea of cleaning the slate, is that the grit and grime of the WWI footage is not intended to find relief. We're not supposed to think that any of those Imperial troops trapped in the meat grinder of the Somme have any material hope of making it out alive or unchanged. (And I don't like what Disney is doing remapping OT to WWI, but that's where the train's going.) The shower scene performs more functions than merely transitioning from one location or state of being to another. Han is washing his hands of a set of delusions. He became disilllusioned at point X, kicked out of Navy at point Y, and still bears up under the onus of at least a dutiful service to the Army by reentry point Z, when we first re-encounter him. The shower scene encapsulates or reifies an idea that he has flown from one end of the spectrum of intent to the other and has never seen any one all-powerful principle of duty to a higher calling. Luke has never been through a Somme; Luke may shine more to a high calling.

<it's day whatever and this film isn't quitting>

 

I'd say that any piece of military hardware is going to be designed for optimum operational flexibilty and can't see any reason why a hualer wouldn't have hyperdrive capabilities.
As for the shower... It's probably a multifunctional chamber used for all types of de-contamination procedures (Bio hazard, Bugs etc) ....and good for getting the mud out of a mucky Wookie's fur.

 

The way the beat works between scenes is:
1) The last we see of Mimban
2) Shower
3) The first we see of snow planet (Vandor?)
So a working theory is that there was another ship, a bigger ship, belonging to Becket, and that's where the shower scene was lifted from. It works for me as an endearing moment because everyone loves the idea of fresh air, bracing air even, after a long hard day and a hot shower. It turns over a new leaf thoroughly.

 

I had never noticed the naked AT-AT type of vehicle walking in the water next to the docks, until tonight. My eyes had always been on Han's speeder during previous viewings. There's a couple of shots with them walking around in the water. They seem like a combination of a crane and a flatbed truck.

 

Being a big '70 Dodge Charger fan and seeing it implemented in Han's speeder is fantastic. Such a nice vibe going on being that Han steals the nicest speeder on the lot. I just recently received the art of Solo so I can't wait to break down more concept of the vehicles. It was interesting that the movie was to open in space to a large Star Destroyer that was being put together in three pieces. Love the AT-DT also. I never did find the vehicle toy AT-DT in stores.