Li

I rewatched ROTJ last night and I don't understand why R2 had Luke's lightsaber when he went to Jabba's palace. Was there a reason for that?

Jackskeleton

Because he was smuggling a weapon into the palace incase he got searched or whatever. who knows. it looked cool.

Li

I suppose, I guess I was thrown off since Leia smuggled in her supposed "thermal detonator". He could have easily used his mind tricks to get around the searching process. Didn't he just choke the guards when he entered anyway? Maybe he though it was going to be harder to get in than it was? The whole thing just seemed like a spontaneous mess.

mikehunt

it would have made more sense if he hid one, yet carried a second one with him and we see him get disarmed before going in to see jabba

Li

Or gone in slashing! That would have been less dangerous than the whole Carkoon pit. Like I said, it didn't seem as though they really had much of a plan at all, other than the whole Liea posing as a bounty hunter thing.

bboisvert

Honestly, the whole Jabba sequence doesn't make a damn bit of sense, when you think about it... it never has. What, exactly, was the plan here? They get Lando in there as an employee. Fine. Then they send the droids. OK... doesn't make much sense. Then they get Leia in (in disguise) and get Chewie sent to the dungeon. Now we're completely off the reservation -- what if Leia had actually broken Han out? Now what? Both fucking droids are still there, plus Chewie. Nice fuckin plan.

Since everything errupted into a huge gun battle anyway, why not do it when Han is *still protected* in the Carbonite and you are not exposed out on a sail barge. How about using the element of surprise?

RotJ bugged me when I was a kid and it still does. It's a fun enough movie, but it's lazy from a story perspective. In 20+ years, no one has ever explained exactly what the "Jabba plan" was...

Li

Good point about Chewie in the dungeon. That makes the whole thing make even less sense.

silentbob007

I assume that Luke made his own lightsaber because he had to in order to become a full fledged Jedi Knight.

Li

Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with anything? It certainly doesn't explain why he gave it to R2 and walked into Jabba's palace unarmed. The whole "to get around the guards" doesn't make sense because he chokes them when he walks in (and could have just as easily sliced them up).

Jackskeleton

He walked in there unarmed because he wanted to make a negotation with Jabba. Sure he failed with the message in the driods, but he wanted to walk in there with peace on the mind and walk out of there with everyone in hand.

Not to mentiont hat if worse comes to worse and he was trapped somehow, he could fall back to R2 to get his weapon already being in there.

Jason

It's a dramatic element of the story. Luke lost his lightsaber when Vader cut off his hand. We see him get a new robotic hand at the end of TESB, but no saber. When the audience sees him in Jabba's palace, they don't know he has a new one yet. The payoff is when Artoo gives it to Luke at the last moment.

Doughboy

Nah, the real payoff is seeing that Luke's new lightsaber is green. I remember thinking that was the coolest thing ever as a kid. And that's reason enough for me to show a Star Wars newbie the movies in the order they were made(and the originals on LD so they're not exposed to the green lightsaber glitch on the ANH DVD).

mikehunt

that ANH glitch is really annoying

Jadow

The only place he could have hid it would have been you know where... Tom Cruises favorite place to stuff things.

Also, I'd always figured he bought that lightsaber off eBay. Even back in 83 I figured eBay!

Kube

I thought you were asking a question about why Vader had 2 lightsabers at the end of Jedi. One on his belt - which was Lukes - and another in his hand. In a version of the script, Luke gives Vader his light saber - in the middle of their fight - and then gets baited by Vader and then gets it back.

Fok

Because it looks more cool when R2 fires it up

I guess he knew he would of lost it if he bought it in himself.

Filmmaker

It's just like Yoda said--you find "only what you take with you". Luke walked into Jabba's lair with an offering of peace; he knew the chances of it being reciprocated in kind were slim to nil, but as a Jedi, he had to present himself fully as a peaceful man--that means sans weaponry--before being forced by Jabba's actions to switch into warrior mode. It was Luke's way of "hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst".

GuessWho

jedis don't fight. they have "aggressive negotiations"

DRG

They also had to wager that R2-D2 would actually be assigned to someplace near Luke when the lightsaber was needed.

Timber

Who's to say R2 gets assigned anywhere? Threepio yeah I can see his skills being used but there's nothing for R3 to do in a place like that. So they're banking on Luke killing the Rangor so they have to take them out to the Sarlacc?

I've never really thought about it but it really is a far fetched plan.

GuessWho

Luke had alternatives instead of using R2-D2....

Cartload

Who cares if the plot to rescue Han was logical or not? What matters is that a result was this:

Li

Nice.

Dr. DVD

I still have problems with Luke's plan. The ROTJ novelization has a part where Han leans over to him when they are over the Sarlacc pit and says: "Luke, if this is your rescue plan, so far I'm not crazy about it." Great line, wish they had left it in.

Kube

ANH glitch?