For all we know, these tubes simply open and close at intervals for some kind of ventilation purpose and Luke coming to rest on top of it had nothing to do with it opening.
Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens
- Thread starter cooleddie74
- Start date
For all we know, these tubes simply open and close at intervals for some kind of ventilation purpose and Luke coming to rest on top of it had nothing to do with it opening.
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OK, so that is the lightsaber then, falling away? I can't say that's the best shot of it falling away below the city that there is in the film. Still hard to make out there. Granting that it is, that's kinda bizarre, actually, since his hand had gotten chopped off and it and the saber had already fallen away a minute or more (give or take) before Luke was dropped out at the bottom. That whole part of the film, from Luke diving away and then getting sucked (or is it telekinetically guided? or a combination of both?) into the air tube has always seemed pretty dodgy to me.
Yeah, or is it not?
Honestly, I never thought it was his saber falling away, and it never even occurred to me that it might be. The timing's all wrong. This conversation is the first time I'd ever even considered that possibility. I think we need a better screen grab.
I doubt there is a better shot. It was blurry originally if I recall.
There were a bunch of weathervanes down there, so its not like where Luke went is the only opening. I wonder if it is even suppose to eject things from the city. It could be part of the gas mining process or an equalization system to help keep the city stable. It could just be there to let air in, rather than stuff out. That central core area was rather windy and had holes everywhere.
The city was there to support Tibanna gas mining after all. The carbonite freeze system was there to transport the gas off world.
The nature of a Gas Giant means there is no surface, so if Luke's lightsaber fell outside, its gone (unless there is another part to the city under it, or a mining platform). The more logical solution is that it ended up in a scrap heap like 3PO did and somehow it got sold to someplace and eventually ended up on Jakku, where there are a bunch of scrap dealers. At that point, finding that lightsaber ends up in the category of "Will of the Force", much like how all the other events start.
Though that lightsaber has a lot of blood on it, so to speak. Anakin used it for a time during the Clone Wars, and did a lot of Jedi Killing and Separatist killing as Darth Vader before Obi-wan relieved him of said saber. Luke did a little with it as well in the few years he owned it. Though no where near the levels of his father, as he really didn't which over to just using the lightsaber until he built his own.
There were a bunch of weathervanes down there, so its not like where Luke went is the only opening. I wonder if it is even suppose to eject things from the city. It could be part of the gas mining process or an equalization system to help keep the city stable. It could just be there to let air in, rather than stuff out. That central core area was rather windy and had holes everywhere.
The city was there to support Tibanna gas mining after all. The carbonite freeze system was there to transport the gas off world.
The nature of a Gas Giant means there is no surface, so if Luke's lightsaber fell outside, its gone (unless there is another part to the city under it, or a mining platform). The more logical solution is that it ended up in a scrap heap like 3PO did and somehow it got sold to someplace and eventually ended up on Jakku, where there are a bunch of scrap dealers. At that point, finding that lightsaber ends up in the category of "Will of the Force", much like how all the other events start.
Though that lightsaber has a lot of blood on it, so to speak. Anakin used it for a time during the Clone Wars, and did a lot of Jedi Killing and Separatist killing as Darth Vader before Obi-wan relieved him of said saber. Luke did a little with it as well in the few years he owned it. Though no where near the levels of his father, as he really didn't which over to just using the lightsaber until he built his own.
So what if in the new Star Wars movie Han and Leia aren't a couple anymore? That would be interesting.
Isn't that the current default idea for Leia and Han for TFA?
I don't read a ton of fan theories/speculation.
A gas giant planet having a band of breathable pressurized Oxygen is feasible without any sort of sci-fi allowance given? Ok.
If you're going to get all sci-fi-y, an oxygen-rich layer could suggest that life evolved on the planet. Maybe something along the lines of Clarke's ("A Meeting with Medusa")/Sagan's ("Cosmos") (or whoever gets credit) gas giant balloon-like floaters and swooping hunters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Meeting_with_Medusa
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uakLB7Eni2E[/yt]
30 years is a long time. Han Solo is a scoundrel after all. Even if he found a more noble calling as a military leader in the Rebel Alliance. It all depends on just what went down after Return of the Jedi and how long Leia and Han can keep from brickering over stuff (they are good at that).
Also it depends on what happened to the Falcon and potenally, Han's kid(s). The general assumption is that Rey is Han's daughter. It could be completely wrong. If we go by the actress age, Rey would be in her early 20s and would have been born several years after the Battle of Endor, which around 30 years before The Force Awakens.
Wait a minute. That does roughly lineup with the EU births of the Solo children. In the roughly 5-7 years after Endor range. Not sure if that is just because they wanted a young actress, or they are trying to pull something based on at least something people could guess at.
(The only one of the main cast that is roughly the right age to have been born within nine months of Endor is Adam Diver).
Also it depends on what happened to the Falcon and potenally, Han's kid(s). The general assumption is that Rey is Han's daughter. It could be completely wrong. If we go by the actress age, Rey would be in her early 20s and would have been born several years after the Battle of Endor, which around 30 years before The Force Awakens.
Wait a minute. That does roughly lineup with the EU births of the Solo children. In the roughly 5-7 years after Endor range. Not sure if that is just because they wanted a young actress, or they are trying to pull something based on at least something people could guess at.
(The only one of the main cast that is roughly the right age to have been born within nine months of Endor is Adam Diver).
yeap, agreed. And in the EU the thought of the saber being retrieved is an idea that's already 20+ years old.
And Adam Driver certainly has some facial resemblances to Harrison Ford, so there's more than a faint possibility that Kylo Ren and Rey could be brother and sister and thus the big-screen, official version of the Solo Twins we've been reading about in the old EU for years (though the siblings wouldn't have to be twins but born several years apart).
Nice insult to Harrison Ford!
Sorry but Adam Driver is, to be charitable, unique looking.
Given how much material there was in the EU, it's certainly interesting how similar some of the material is with what we know/theorize in regards to TFA.
The question would then be why is Rey a scavenger and junk trader if she is Leia and Han's daughter?
Not that I don't think the idea is implausible. For example in the Legacy v2 comic there is a similar scenario with the protagonist being a Solo descendent and also a scavenger.
But I thought given Luke's monologue in the trailer there might exist the possibility that she is his kid.
The question would then be why is Rey a scavenger and junk trader if she is Leia and Han's daughter?
Not that I don't think the idea is implausible. For example in the Legacy v2 comic there is a similar scenario with the protagonist being a Solo descendent and also a scavenger.
But I thought given Luke's monologue in the trailer there might exist the possibility that she is his kid.
I call 'em as I see 'em.
I noticed the similarities at the Comic-Con panel featuring J.J. and the cast.
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OK, so that is the lightsaber then, falling away? I can't say that's the best shot of it falling away below the city that there is in the film. Still hard to make out there. Granting that it is, that's kinda bizarre, actually, since his hand had gotten chopped off and it and the saber had already fallen away a minute or more (give or take) before Luke was dropped out at the bottom. That whole part of the film, from Luke diving away and then getting sucked (or is it telekinetically guided? or a combination of both?) into the air tube has always seemed pretty dodgy to me.
That's easy enough to explain if you're so inclined. It would be inefficient for the external hatch to open up every time some minor piece of garbage was dropped in the shaft, so it has a weight sensor that tells it to open after a certain amount of trash has accumulated, and Luke's weight set off the sensor.
So his hand and lightsaber fell down the shaft earlier, got sucked into an air tube for smaller debris, and was awaiting dumping. Then Luke fell in to another air tube and triggered the external hatch to open, and both were dumped at the same time.
The problem isn't the screengrab. The object is blurry and seen from a distance for a reason: to cover for the special effects compositing, because a detailed closeup of the hand would look fake, and probably because no one anticipated that 33 years later nerds would be arguing over what it was, so they didn't feel the need to have a close-up beauty shot of it as it fell.I think we need a better screen grab.
To me, the simplest reason for believing that's it's his hand and lightsaber is a story-driven one. What purpose does showing some random piece of garbage falling serve the story? It's not as if it's necessary to convey the desperation of Luke's situation since he's hanging from the bottom of a floating city and pole dancing with his only remaining hand like a daytime stripper.
But to imply to the audience that it's his hand and lightsaber floating away beneath him reinforces the dark themes of the film and is of greater import to Luke. The hand symbolizes his defeat and his arrogance in thinking he could take on Vader so easily. Losing his father's lightsaber symbolizes the loss of the innocent and pure image of his father that existed until just a few moments before when Vader revealed the truth to him. He's literally losing the last connection he had to his father, or at least to the idealized version of how he had always thought of him.
To a lesser extent it's also a loss of his more innocent connection to Obi-Wan, who gave him the saber, which Luke now realizes was all part of a huge deception and manipulation about his father, hence the half-angry, half-sad "Obi-Wan, why didn't you tell me?" a short while later.
Thematically having it be his hand and lightsaber rather than just some random piece of junk is a lot more powerful and befitting of the dark tone that Empire ends on. It's not like it's definitive in any way, but that's just my two cents.
Also, to me that pic does seem to have a pretty distinct hand shape with a long, thin silver tube next to it, which fits with the prop hand and saber falling together in the first shot right after Vader cuts it off. I don't have infinite CSI image enhancement, but here it is resized, sharpened, and with some contrast and brightness adjustments:
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Yeah, there's not a point in Ford's life where he resembled Driver. That's a huge insult!
We only have the film to use as evidence, and it is clear the tube was designed to keep waste moving toward the trap door. What other reason would there be to have a trap door leading to empty space?
The curves served the visual impact of Luke going from one frightening experience (his would-be suicide fall) to another. Speeding toward some unknown danger just added to his defeat and (at that moment) fall to what should have been his end.
Adding the trap doors was part of the impact, but also was part of the practical design of Cloud City in getting rid of waste, or whatever else falls into the shaft.
Luke's fall was the evidence that anything falling into the air shaft would be sucked into the tubes. That's how the shaft was designed. It would be EU territory (NOOOOO) to create a miracle fate for his hand/lightsaber when no on-screen evidence suggests alternatives at all.
Driver, if anything, resembles the cartoon of Solo from the Holiday Special.
It's simple. They fixed it - not completely, but jury-rigged well enough to limp to another port.
Han & Chewbacca are mechanics. They can park the ship in space and work on it.
What I find notable is that, despite the usage of completely different terminology, the situation faced by the Falcon in TESB is functionally the same as the situation faced by Padme's ship in TPM. In both cases the protagonists must find a safe port within a certain limited range. In TPM "the hyperdrive is leaking"; they still have it, they still obviously have the capability of interstellar travel without having to take years in the process, but they can't go all the way to Coruscant. The hyperdrive is only reliable within a certain range and so they choose Tatooine, from within that range, as their destination, hoping that the hyperdrive can be fixed once they get there. This is precisely analogous to the Falcon and Bespin.
DWF said:
It's simple. They fixed it - not completely, but jury-rigged well enough to limp to another port.
Han & Chewbacca are mechanics. They can park the ship in space and work on it.
What I find notable is that, despite the usage of completely different terminology, the situation faced by the Falcon in TESB is functionally the same as the situation faced by Padme's ship in TPM. In both cases the protagonists must find a safe port within a certain limited range. In TPM "the hyperdrive is leaking"; they still have it, they still obviously have the capability of interstellar travel without having to take years in the process, but they can't go all the way to Coruscant. The hyperdrive is only reliable within a certain range and so they choose Tatooine, from within that range, as their destination, hoping that the hyperdrive can be fixed once they get there. This is precisely analogous to the Falcon and Bespin.
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Bullocks. They didn't fix it. The ships in SW can go from system to system just like we can drive a car from town to town. That's just what the ships in Star Wars do, science be damned. We can't drive a car from NY to Paris. There are some trips (either by distance, or by celestial obstacles, or even to make a quick getaway from the Empire - which they were trying to do that latter.. if you recall) that the hyprdrive was necessary.
But make no mistake.. the ships in SW can go between systems, that includes the Falcon and the Death Star in the first film as well as an X-Wing.
