00:45:01 – 01:00:00
This chapter of the Star Wars Edition of 15-Minute Force begins at that famous cantina in Mos Eisley where everyone knows your name. Well, if your name is Greedo, maybe. More on him in a moment.
The Wookieepedia tells me that the cantina is canonically named Chalmun’s Cantina, which makes perfect sense because a spaceport the size of Mos Eisley (in the special editions, at least) would have more than one drinking establishment, one would suppose. However, in my mind, it remains the Mos Eisley Cantina, as it has since 1977.
I was never a Star Wars toy guy. I’m not certain why, though I suspect lack of money to purchase the toys may have contributed to this. Also, at the age of 11-going-on-12-years-old, I was already transitioning out of toys and into other things, like girls and music. Okay, mainly music. My relationship with toys is a complicated one, because much later, when I had the means, I did purchase a few toys as “collectibles.” But, these were mainly Star Trek figures from Playmates, MacFarlane figures that included Spawn, sports figures, and KISS, and various superhero action figures. I still have these, although they are in boxes instead of displayed on shelves where they belong. And most are still in the original packaging, which is sound practice for collectibles but a sorry waste of good toys. But, I digress—
My point is that I never had Star Wars toys, so I don’t know the names of most of the Star Wars creatures or characters without speaking roles. If I do know the names, it’s because I learned them incidentally over the years, through reading, listening to DVD commentaries or podcasts, or watching promotional videos. Or, while searching for different information on the Internet.
For instance, I don’t know the names or the alien races of most of the Rick Baker aliens shown as Luke and Ben (it’s difficult for me to keep calling Alec Guinness “Obi-Wan” when none of the other characters do (besides, Han and Leia named their son “Ben,” not “Obi-Wan,” so I have to assume that was his real name)) enter the cantina. It’s a diverse crowd in the bar, with many different types of aliens, including one man in what looks from a distance like an old NASA astronaut spacesuit. I do recognize Jawas in there, of course, but I’m still unconvinced that they aren’t really Ewoks in hooded cloaks.
Through most of this establishing shot, we keep getting Luke and C-3PO in an odd two-shot, supposedly reacting to this wretched hive of scum and villainy.
One of my favorite, and most memorable, creature masks was the one I call Devil-Face. He looks completely evil. And he also looks like he’s having a good time. Then, we get our first close look at the Mos Eisley Cantina house band, who are the most iconic Roswell-alien-like creatures we’ve seen, with the bulbous bald heads and large, black almond-shaped eyes. They are of the alien race known as the Bith, but I just learned that on the ‘pedia, I’ll admit.
The song playing as Luke and Ben enter the cantina is now ubiquitous, of course. In fact, it’s almost as iconic as the main Star Wars theme. The song is actually given a name elsewhere, but I choose to think of it as “Cantina Band No. 1,” as it’s known at starwarsmusic.pashamusic.com. The song has that big-band Benny Goodman vibe. Ironically, I discovered that the actors in the Bith costumes were moving to Benny Goodman music during the shooting of the scene. Okay, maybe it’s not ironic. It makes sense. John Williams was probably instructed to compose a Benny Goodman-type song for the scene.
We get a quick shot of Ben Kenobi talking to the familiarly hirsute Wookiee we know and love as Chewbacca at the bar. Ben doesn’t seem to be a stranger to the cantina. I understand that Alec Guinness was no tee-totaler either, so I like to imagine that this was one of the old Jedi’s familiar haunts whenever he was able to hitch a ride out past Anchorhead. Maybe to watch a podrace on one of the many vidscreens that do not exist in the bar. Well, Tatooine is a backwater planet, not some fancy-schmancy planet like Coruscant where vidscreens would be in bars decades before this movie.
The bartender yells at Luke, telling him that they don’t serve their kind here. Meaning the droids. Hey, a fresh new take on racism. Droidism. That’s science fiction right there.
Luke orders the droids to go wait by the landspeeder. They comply, even the rebellious rebel droid R2-D2. This seems a little careless since the Imperial Stormtroopers are still searching the area for two droids. But, what do I know?
Luke sidles up to the bar, looking like the country mouse in the city, and tells the bartender he’ll “have one of those.” I’m not sure what Luke is indicating here, but let’s hope it’s not something that will kill a human the moment it passes his lips. What is the drinking age on Tatooine, I wonder? Or, is it completely lawless in the wretched hives?
Here we also get our first look at Walrus Man and his ugly companion, who we last saw walking the streets of Jedha City during Rogue One: a Star Wars story. I guess they evacuated before the big Death Star test.
More crowd shots. I think I saw a female or two, but it seems to be mostly a male crowd. Maybe our heroes have stumbled into not just a multicultural spaceport bar, but a gay bar as well. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
We see Ben still talking to Chewie. Then, Walrus Man says something to Luke in a language Luke doesn’t understand. Walrus’s pug-nosed friend tells Luke that Walrus Man doesn’t like him. “I’m sorry,” Luke says, then returns his attention to his drink. Then, Pug-Nose tells Luke that he doesn’t like Luke either.
Pug-Nose tells Luke to watch himself because they are wanted men. Pug says that he himself has the death sentence in 12 systems, which is impressive if it’s true, especially since he doesn’t mind bragging about it even when the spaceport is crawling with Imperial soldiers.
“I’ll be careful,” Luke says.
“You’ll be dead!” Pug-Nose says.
This exchange has not gone unnoticed by Ben, who suddenly appears and tells Pug-Nose that this “little one” isn’t worth the bother, and then offers to buy the bullies a drink. Instead of accepting the drink graciously, Pug-Nose hurls Luke across the room like a discarded piece of trash. Ben has no choice but to light up his lightsaber and separate a limb from miscreant body. Of course, the arm Ben cut off seems to have belonged to Walrus Man, not Pug-Nose, the guy who was doing all the threatening, and who threw Luke across the room. While it’s true that Walrus Man was apparently holding a blaster at the time, and maybe even got off a shot that hit nothing at point-blank range, this doesn’t seem exactly fair. We have only Pug-Nose’s interpretation that Walrus Man was even threatening Luke. He may have just been asking the young hayseed to make a little room at the bar. And after Walrus Man’s arm is lying on the cantina floor, the confrontation seems inexplicably over. I guess Pug-Nose has learned his lesson.
Ben seems to think so. He extinquishes his lightsaber and introduces the wimpy, easily-hurled Luke to Chewbacca, who is the first mate on a ship that might suit their needs. After the quick fight scene, the rest of the bar patrons go back to doing what they were doing before Ben turned their heads with his casual dismemberment.
One screen-wipe later, we see C-3PO and R2 standing dutifully by the landspeeder, with Stormtroopers in the background. C-3PO says he doesn’t like the look of this.
Back inside the cantina, the Bith Band is in full swing with their other big hit, “Cantina Band No. 2” as we are introduced to Han Solo, the pilot of the Millennium Falcon. Han gives “Falcon” a pronunciation that is decidedly more UK than US. “Fall-con.” However, you don’t get much more American than The Maltese Falcon, and it was pronounced in Han-fashion in that movie. Both ways appear to be correct, so let’s move on, shall we?
Of more interest to me is the correct pronunciation of “Han” and “Leia.” I’m a “Hahn” and “Lay-Uh” guy myself, but there are dissenting opinions out there. Everyone seems to agree on “Luke.”
Han (he introduces himself as “Hahn” not “Han-as-in-Hand”) brags that the Falcon made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, which generations of nerds have pointed out as a mistake. I picked up on it at 11 years old as well, but later rationalized it as the equivalent of finding shortcuts to reduce the distance traveled rather than looking at parsecs as a unit of time. Truth is, I think George Lucas made a mistake, but it still works if you look at if from a particular point of view.
Han says, “It’s fast enough for you, old man. What’s the cargo?”
“Only passengers,” Ben responds. “Myself. The boy. Two droids. And, no questions asked.”
Captain Solo, who doesn’t know the meaning of no-questions-asked, immediately asks if it’s some sort of local trouble. Ben just says they’d like to avoid any “imperial entanglements.” Han says that will cost them something extra. 10,000 – all in advance.
10,000 what? Imperial credits? Power converters? If it’s Walrus Man arms, Ben is going to have to get busy swinging his lightsaber.
Luke says they could almost buy their own ship for that amount. When Han questions who would fly it, Luke says he’s not such a bad pilot himself. Ben wears a pained expression during the exchange, as if he’s tired of hearing Luke’s voice. Ben tells Han they can pay him 2,000 now, plus 15,000 when they reach Alderaan. I remember thinking, as a kid, that Ben was doing his mind-trick thing again, but it occurs to me now that he isn’t. And, I’m not sure why not. Is it because Han isn’t suitably weak-minded, or because Ben knows Chewbacca? I’m not sure.
Whatever the case, simple greed is enough to sway Han, and he tells the unlikely pair of travelers to meet him in Docking Bay 94. Ben repeats the numbers, which is a Jedi trick I often use to remember numbers myself. Ninety-four.
Han points out Stormtroopers speaking to the bartender. The bartender points in their general direction, but when the soldiers arrive at Han and Chewie’s table, Ben and Luke are no longer there. Never mind how they pulled that trick off.
After the Stormtroopers move on from the table, we get our first scene of Han and Chewie alone. I want to take a brief respite from the action to talk about the Wookiee called Chewbacca.
I was raised in the southern United States, and as a kid, I was familiar with chewing tobacco. Red Man Chewing Tobacco was the culturally-insensitive brand that seemed to be most popular in semi-rural South Carolina at the time. I admit to attempting to use it myself, and deciding that cigarettes stolen from my Mom and Dad were more my speed. So, hearing a character called “Chewbacca” was initially jarring to my ears (perhaps even jar-jarring). Only through repetition, and shortening the name to the friendlier “Chewie,” did I stop associating my favorite Wookiee with a substance that literally nauseated me.
While we’re talking about Chewie, I never considered the Wookiee to be Han Solo’s pet, even though I later found out that he was based on George Lucas’s dog. When you co-pilot a starship and wear a bandolier, you are not a dog.
Han comments to Chewie that their passengers must really be desperate. The 17,000 Jawa testicles they’re getting paid could really save his neck. Okay, I added the testicles myself. 17,000 somethings. Han orders Chewie, rather brusquely in my opinion, to get back to the ship to get it ready for takeoff.
As Ben and Luke leave the cantina area, Ben tells Luke that they’ll have to sell his ‘speeder. That’s okay, Luke says, he’s never coming back to this shithole planet. Something like that, at any rate. This exchange implies that Ben doesn’t even have the 2,000 whatevers he promised Han, let alone the balance promised.
Back inside the cantina, Greedo stops Han as he’s leaving. Han says he was just going to see Greedo’s boss. “Tell Jabba that I have his money,” Han says, which is not quite the truth yet.
Greedo tells Han that it’s too late; he should have paid when he had the chance. Jabba has put a price on Han’s head so large that every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be looking for him. And there are a lot of bounty hunters in the galaxy, let me tell you.
Greedo tells Han that if he gives him the money, maybe he’ll forget that he saw him. Han says he doesn’t have it with him. Meanwhile, we see Han loosening his blaster in its holster. Greedo says Jabba no longer has any use for smugglers who dump their cargo at the first sight of Imperial cruisers. Han says even he gets boarded sometimes. Greedo says tell that to Jabba and maybe he’ll take only his ship this time.
“Over my dead body,” Han says. What follows is a special edition alteration to the original movie that has been hotly debated ever since. My Han Solo—from the original film—shot Greedo before the alien bounty hunter could get off a shot. And, I was completely okay with that. It was a preemptive strike, and Han was a morally-gray character. An antihero. I understood that even if I didn’t know the word “antihero” at the time. Lucas decided later that, as a hero, Han wouldn’t have shot Greedo first, and I respect his decision as the creator of this milieu. However, I choose to disregard the change. Han Shot First. Again, let’s move on.
Screen-wipe to an establishing shot of the Death Star, with two TIE fighters roaring past.
Interior shot. Vader tells Tarkin that Princess Leia’s resistance to the mind probe is considerable and it will be some time before they can extract any information from her.
The Grand Moff, who didn’t rise to his exalted position by being a dummy, suggests that Leia might respond to an alternative form of persuasion. He then orders a flunky to set their course for Alderaan. Dun-dun-Duhn!
A weird center-to-either-side screen-wipe later, and we’re back on C-3PO, who is hiding from Stormtroopers with R2 behind a locked door. Locked doors are enough to keep out Stormtroopers, it turns out. Jot that in the margins of your Rebel Handbook. Ben and Luke are nowhere in sight.
Speaking of whom, we cut to Luke and Ben. Luke is complaining about how little he gets from selling the landspeeder. Ever since the XP-38 came out, they’re just not in demand. You’re familiar with the XP-38, aren’t you? It’s the one with the Q-36 space modulator popularized by Marvin the Martian. Ben says it’ll be enough, so I’m going to assume it’s at least 2,000 monetary units of some kind.
As the camera pans, we notice that Ben and Luke are being followed by a dark cloaked figure with an elephant trunk for a nose.
Next, we get the highly publicized but wholly unnecessary scene of Han’s conversation with Jabba. I understand why Lucas wanted to include the scene in the special edition. CGI technology had advanced to the point that allowed him to include the previously cut scene from the original film and add the computer-generated Jabba the Hutt who wouldn’t appear on camera in the original trilogy until Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. This is a technology-driven example of retconning.
Okay, it is kind of cool that Boba Fett is also included in the background (more retconning), but the scene is superfluous. It doesn’t even make sense. Why would Han go immediately to Jabba after killing the guy sent to kill him? Why wouldn’t Jabba just kill Han on sight, especially considering how much joy he takes in having the smuggler frozen in carbonite a few years later? But, in this old footage, Jabba doesn’t look right. He looks too cartoonish against all the practical effects and set décor. He also doesn’t appear to be the correct size compared to his later appearance. And, don’t even get me started about the Han-stepping-on-Jabba’s-tail bit. That made me want to shoot Han myself. It was just too cutesy.
The movie missed nothing by cutting this scene in the first place, when Jabba was a human gangster instead of a giant space slug. However, playing Devil’s Advocate for a moment, this scene did generate a lot of publicity prior to the special edition release, as I recall, so maybe it did serve another purpose.
The scene ends with Jabba relenting to Han’s proposal (which also seems unlikely), but warns that if Han fails him this time, he’ll put a price on Han’s head so large he won’t be safe entering any civilized system. Han’s parting words to Jabba are that he’s a wonderful human being, which would have made more sense when Jabba was an actual human being. As it is in the special edition scene, it comes across as a huge insult to a Hutt. I know we’re supposed to think of Han as a ballsy space pirate-sans-eyepatch, but this seems a bit too much as well.
Why didn’t Jabba just go ahead and kill Han? Discuss this amongst yourselves.
Ben and Luke arrive at Docking Bay 94 (See? I remembered) with their elephant-nosed shadow still behind them.
Luke’s initial assessment of the Millennium Falcon?
“What a piece of junk!” Luke exclaims. This immediately puts Han on the defensive, who continues to boast about this ship that’s “got it where it counts” and then rushes his passengers on board.
In our very first shot of Chewie entering the cockpit of the Falcon, I notice the tiny silver dice hanging from overhead. Those of us old enough to remember fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror can be secretly pleased with this bit of cornball nonsense.
Stormtroopers tipped off by Elephant-Nose arrive at Docking Bay 94 and immediately begin blasting away at Han Solo, who seems to be completing a final spaceship check on the entrance ramp. Han returns fire with his Luger-blaster, then enters the Falcon, shouting for Chewie to take off. Chewie complies while their passengers take seats around the space-chess board.
High above Tatooine, Han notices an Imperial Cruiser and deduces that their passengers must be hotter than he thought. Han tells Chewie to try to hold them off and angle their deflector shields while he makes the calculations for the jump to lightspeed. I’m equating the “lightspeed” to Star Trek’s impulse, since I think we hear more about “hyperspace” later, which is like Trek’s warpspeed in my head-canon. Space nerds know that lightspeed is quite slow compared to the vastness of a galaxy, much less the universe itself.
Two other Imperial ships are approaching. Han warns that they’re going to try to cut them off. Ben and Luke suddenly appear in the cockpit, and Luke asks why doesn’t Han outrun them; he thought Han said the ship was fast. Han casually threatens to throw Luke out an airlock, which would have shortened the saga considerably. Then, Han says they’ll be safe enough once they make the jump to hyperspace, which kind of equates it with the aforementioned “lightspeed,” I guess, but I choose to ignore the implications.
Han is still waiting for the navicomputer to give him the coordinates to make their jump. Meanwhile, the Imperial ship is firing upon them with green laser bolts. Luke makes another derogatory remark directed at Han, who responds:
“Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dustin’ crops, Boy! Without precise calculations, we’d fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova. And that would end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”
Dialogue such as this brings back clear memories of how I felt about this movie when I was eleven. I identified with Luke strongly during this movie. Everyone keeps calling him “boy,” and all the adults seem perpetually put out with him. What kid couldn’t identify with that? This was clearly a film aimed at the kid demographic, and Luke was the character we were meant to identify with. And, I did. He is the young hero, and all of the adults just didn’t understand him.
In addition, this techno-babble about hyperspace calculations and navicomputers and stars and supernovae appealed to the science-fiction geek that I’ve always been, it seems.
As they are losing a deflector shield, Han orders his passengers to go strap themselves in as he makes the jump to lightspeed. Then we get our first look, from cockpit POV, of the elongating starfield as the Falcon makes the jump. This was the first time anyone had seen such a thing, you have to remember. I was thrilled.
Then we cut to an establishing shot of the Death Star approaching an Earth-like planet that is probably Alderaan. As you may recall, Alderaan is where the Millennium Falcon and its passengers are headed.
Where did Act One actually transition into Act Two? I have a couple of arguments to present. Part of me wants to say that the transition occurred after Luke discovers that his aunt and uncle have been killed. That’s where he joins Ben Kenobi in his damn-fool crusade. However, we still haven’t met Han and Chewie at that point. Maybe the transition doesn’t actually occur until the Millennium Falcon leaves Docking Bay 94, which is the first time our heroes leave Tatooine. Of course, that scene occurs closer to the midpoint of the film. Having thought this out more deeply, I find myself returning to the smoldering skeleton scene as the actual transition from Act One. I don’t like the fact that main characters are being introduced toward the middle of Act Two, but maybe the truth is that Han and Chewie weren’t really main characters yet. Sad, but true. Plus, leaving Tatooine at the one-hour mark makes this almost perfect as the midpoint of the second act. Unless what’s about to happen to Alderaan is the midpoint, which may make more sense.
Maybe my opinion will change as I get further into the movie.
Back to the Death Star. Leia is brought before the Grand Moff by Darth Vader.
“Governor Tarkin,” she says, “I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.”
“Charming to the last,” Tarkin says. I find myself also questioning Leia’s abilities as a diplomat. She’s the Don Rickles of the diplomatic corps.
Tarkin tells Leia that before her execution, which he has approved, he has chosen to demonstrate the Death Star’s destructive powers on her home planet of Alderaan. Tarkin gives her a chance to tell him where the rebel base is located to save Alderaan. She says the rebel base in on Dantooine.
Tarkin says Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, so he orders his men to go ahead and destroy Alderaan anyway. We expected no less, didn’t we? Then we get the sequence of analog buttons being pressed and switches thrown, while the sound of the Death Star powering up grows louder. Red and white lights are flashing in the background. Green lasers concentrate above the big divot on the Death Star, then a single powerful green beam shoots straight at Alderaan, which instantly explodes. During the explosion, the planet is surrounded by what the Internet tells me is called, in special-effects circles, a Praxis ring. Since the first occurrence of the effect is noted as occurring in 1979’s Alien, when Ripley destroyed the Nostromo, this suggests that this effect was also a special-edition change. It looks good, though. By the way, Praxis was the name of a Klingon moon similarly destroyed in Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country (1991). Science-fiction (or -fantasy) always seems self-referential.
The scene switches back to the Falcon, where Luke is using a green lightsaber against that floating ball-thing. Ben suddenly has a low-sugar moment and swoons. He detected the destruction of Alderaan as a disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I just saw Alderaan destroyed. No one had time to cry out. Ben adds that he feels like something terrible has happened, which seems like an understatement following the “millions of voices” comment.
In the background, we see that Chewbacca and C-3PO are playing space chess.
As our current chapter of the Star Wars Edition of 15-Minute Force ends, Han Solo is bragging about escaping from the Empire’s ships and says they should reach Alderaan by 0200 hours. I’m not sure if he is indicating Greenwich Mean Time or some Galactic Standard we’re not familiar with yet. It seems that the space chess match is also reaching a critical moment, but we’ll have to see the outcome of that in our next chapter.
Until we meet again, Hey, Wait A Minute. Was Luke’s Lightsaber Green in That Earlier Scene? . . . And May The 15-Minute Force Be With You.
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