Or Leia throws on an officer's uniform.
Switched at birth
- Thread starter Jedi Marso
- Start date
Or Leia throws on an officer's uniform.
One or the other.
Luke was aimless early on….where Leia was always driven.
Instead of trying to gun down his family as Palpatine did…I would have set about spoiling Luke…sending him out of Vader’s reach to Naboo or better—Alderaan…where Tarkin could take care of him at arms length.
Leia on Tatooine could be more easily corrupted by the Nightsisters…perhaps becoming Maul’s apprentice in the end.
She sees her brother and homeworld killed, she will want revenge against the Empire. Make use of that drive to push her to the dark side at length.
Instead of trying to gun down his family as Palpatine did…I would have set about spoiling Luke…sending him out of Vader’s reach to Naboo or better—Alderaan…where Tarkin could take care of him at arms length.
Leia on Tatooine could be more easily corrupted by the Nightsisters…perhaps becoming Maul’s apprentice in the end.
She sees her brother and homeworld killed, she will want revenge against the Empire. Make use of that drive to push her to the dark side at length.
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That's very true. Pretty evident in their personalities.
Wow. Just found a crapload of videos on YouTube taking up this 'what if.'
Luke was doing the work of 2 droids and a human on the farm.
Strong hands make quick work.
I saw some of them, "what if Palpatine was defeated"etc. Some are interesting
I did have a whole response drafted out RE: Luke Organa as Red or even Gold Leader for the trench run, and I thought I saved it, but apparently not and it's now been a busy week later and I really can't remember what I wrote. Oh well, I'm sure bits of it will come back to me!
OK, so where the hell was I again? Right; how Luke's story intersects with Leia's: -
So as I mentioned up-thread; Luke's Lothal mission went about the same as Leia's. He shows up as the Prince of Alderaan with relief supplies and three hammerhead corvettes for the Phoenix Cell to half-inch. Shenanigans ensues, though since his cover is as a (junior) officer of the Guard, his "capture" would have to be staged a little more rough than Leia's. So he probably ended up getting stunned more than once. Otherwise, mostly the same character & story beats. Same for Rogue One, essentially; he'd be there with Bail and be sent aboard the Tantive IV with a mission to extract Ben, before getting swept up in the Battle of Scarif and fleeing with the plans in hand and Vader chasing them down.
I thought about Luke putting up more of a fight in his capture; maybe giving the troopers more of a run-around . . . but that just seems like a needless embellishment. I also considered having him actually escape on his own and making it down to the surface, but that causes WAY too many problems, and starts to feel a little bit too similar to the first act of TFA. So he entrusts the plans and the message to R2, gets captured to buy him time, plays dumb with Vader, then gets carted off to a prison cell on the Death Star.
So back to Leia: I imagine she witnessed part of the battle the same as Luke, but unlike him, didn't abandon her work and droid to go rushing off to Tosche Station to tell everyone . . . and as a result missed Bigg's return visit. Which honestly isn't needed since Leia isn't wistfully longing for a life of adventure, she's mostly concerned with her Aunt & Uncle, and making sure she gets those condensers on the south ridge repaired before sunsdown.
So first thing in the morning the sandcrawler rolls up, and she & Owen fall into their usual routine of Owen taking the lead haggling/distracting with the clan chief, while Leia checks out the merchandise to spot what's actually worth buying, and what's just been made to look like it's worth buying. She of course notices R5's bad motivator and signals to pass him by, instead selecting R2 right off the bat, and getting a discount for how much older and beat up he looks (despite seeing full well he's been well maintained until recently and the Jawas don't know what they have with him yet.)
I'll think more on it later, but I'm having a hard time figuring out if the iconic twin-sunset scene even happens in this version. Might need to think on it some more.
Leia was around Kanan and Ezra (and Vader!) without any of them getting so much as a hint of her potential. The same should be true of Luke if the circumstances were reversed.
Indeed I think Leia has a much better chance of bluffing her way through the checkpoint than Luke & Han managed on their own. She might actually bother to think of an actual exit strategy too. Possibly one that doesn't involve the garbage chute.
OK, so where the hell was I again? Right; how Luke's story intersects with Leia's: -
So as I mentioned up-thread; Luke's Lothal mission went about the same as Leia's. He shows up as the Prince of Alderaan with relief supplies and three hammerhead corvettes for the Phoenix Cell to half-inch. Shenanigans ensues, though since his cover is as a (junior) officer of the Guard, his "capture" would have to be staged a little more rough than Leia's. So he probably ended up getting stunned more than once. Otherwise, mostly the same character & story beats. Same for Rogue One, essentially; he'd be there with Bail and be sent aboard the Tantive IV with a mission to extract Ben, before getting swept up in the Battle of Scarif and fleeing with the plans in hand and Vader chasing them down.
I thought about Luke putting up more of a fight in his capture; maybe giving the troopers more of a run-around . . . but that just seems like a needless embellishment. I also considered having him actually escape on his own and making it down to the surface, but that causes WAY too many problems, and starts to feel a little bit too similar to the first act of TFA. So he entrusts the plans and the message to R2, gets captured to buy him time, plays dumb with Vader, then gets carted off to a prison cell on the Death Star.
So back to Leia: I imagine she witnessed part of the battle the same as Luke, but unlike him, didn't abandon her work and droid to go rushing off to Tosche Station to tell everyone . . . and as a result missed Bigg's return visit. Which honestly isn't needed since Leia isn't wistfully longing for a life of adventure, she's mostly concerned with her Aunt & Uncle, and making sure she gets those condensers on the south ridge repaired before sunsdown.
So first thing in the morning the sandcrawler rolls up, and she & Owen fall into their usual routine of Owen taking the lead haggling/distracting with the clan chief, while Leia checks out the merchandise to spot what's actually worth buying, and what's just been made to look like it's worth buying. She of course notices R5's bad motivator and signals to pass him by, instead selecting R2 right off the bat, and getting a discount for how much older and beat up he looks (despite seeing full well he's been well maintained until recently and the Jawas don't know what they have with him yet.)
I'll think more on it later, but I'm having a hard time figuring out if the iconic twin-sunset scene even happens in this version. Might need to think on it some more.
I'd resist any attempt to have Luke's force sensitivity manifest, or otherwise outed early as it would imply that there's something fundamentally more exceptional about him than Leia, and that doesn't sit right.
Leia was around Kanan and Ezra (and Vader!) without any of them getting so much as a hint of her potential. The same should be true of Luke if the circumstances were reversed.
But she's the perfect size for a TIE pilot or a gunner/engineer. This is not a major hurdle.
Or that.
Indeed I think Leia has a much better chance of bluffing her way through the checkpoint than Luke & Han managed on their own. She might actually bother to think of an actual exit strategy too. Possibly one that doesn't involve the garbage chute.
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Keep this going! I'm enjoying the absolute heck out of this!
I just saw something interesting about this. Apparently, it's a YouTube click-farming scam; find a fanfic, phrase the premise as "What if X," have a text-to-speech program read it, put it over a bunch of stolen images and fan-art of whatever property they're talking about, and rake in the views for only a few minutes of work per video. I just googled "what if Luke and Leia switched places," and the first hit was exactly as described in the post I saw. This person has decided to fight fire with fire, and built an automated tool to analyize these videos and fine the source fanfic they're ripping off, then informing the original author that it's happening and how they can file a protest with YouTube.
Yikes. I kind of see this as an outgrowth of the whole AI art craze that's sweeping the net. People with no artistic talent whatsoever can create fairly good simulations of the art styles of long established artists. I've even done it myself, playing around with Replicate AI, but I don't go posting the stuff all over the internet and claiming to be some great talent.
Imagery is the first thing, now people are doing deepfake voices as well. Pretty sure it's not legal or ethical, but right now it's one of those things almost impossible to defend against. Deepfake technology is going to be the next great scourge of humanity when it comes to information warfare- it's already happening.
Right, so I've had a think, and I might have more of a sense how to navigate most of the rest of ANH's first act: -
The 'Call to Adventure' pretty much has to happen the same way. Leia's in the garage cleaning R2 when she triggers the Prince's hologram message (or R2 triggers it as a ploy to get the restraining bolt off; I've always suspected that was a set-up but the movie makes it ambiguous.) I think the key difference here is her reaction; where Luke was thrilled by the idea of the rebellion and adventure, Leia is terrified because she knows what this means: the Empire will come looking for this droid and that will spell certain peril for her, and her Aunt & Uncle.
So no, she doesn't remove the restraining bolt from R2, but the conversation with Owen and Beru on the matter goes about the same. Owen says to go to Anchorhead in the morning and have R2's memory erased and similarly stonewalls on the subject of her father. What's a little different is that Beru broaches the topic of Leia transmitting her application to the Academy, but Leia insists she stay for the harvest, promising she'll go next year.
Despite all of this, her mind is still uneasy. Erasing the droid's memory won't solve anything if the Empire tracks it here, and despite what she'd like to admit to herself the mention of a Kenobi having some connection with her father stirs a long buried restlessness; a need to find out the truth. Oh and when she goes up to watch the suns set as she contemplates her next move, we don't get the force theme, but the more ominous, foreboding track originally composed for this scene.
Her mind made up, Leia sets out with the two droids at first light. She tells Beru she's headed for Tosche Station to pick up the power converters Owen wanted, but instead cuts across the jundland wastes to try and catch up with the Jawas before the Imperials do, with the intent to give/sell the two droids back and keep her family off the Empire's radar (or scanners, whatever!)
Everything is going fine until they're ambushed by a Tusken scouting party, while trying to squeeze the speeder though a narrow pass halfway up a canyon wall. Threepio panics and tumbles out of the speeder, down the side of the canyon, smashing into the boulder strewn gorge. Leia downs one raider with her rifle, but takes a glancing blow from a gaderffii to the back of the head and blacks out. When she comes to, the Tuskens have mysteriously fled and Ben is standing over her, hand on her forehead. Yadda-yadda-yadda. "Obi-Wan Kenobi." "Threepio!" "Quickly! They're on the move!" etc. etc.
This last bit plays out a little differently as I switched the perspective away from R2 to Leia instead. That's because this time around he still has the restraining bolt, and thus didn't run off in the night. Also, keeping it from Leia's perspective allows me to cut the fight short when she's knocked out and we don't have to deal with that whole weird krayt dragon call bit. Indeed, not knowing how Ben scared off the Tuskens would add a little to his mystique, especially when combined with his unassuming demeanour.
That's it for now; more later.
The 'Call to Adventure' pretty much has to happen the same way. Leia's in the garage cleaning R2 when she triggers the Prince's hologram message (or R2 triggers it as a ploy to get the restraining bolt off; I've always suspected that was a set-up but the movie makes it ambiguous.) I think the key difference here is her reaction; where Luke was thrilled by the idea of the rebellion and adventure, Leia is terrified because she knows what this means: the Empire will come looking for this droid and that will spell certain peril for her, and her Aunt & Uncle.
So no, she doesn't remove the restraining bolt from R2, but the conversation with Owen and Beru on the matter goes about the same. Owen says to go to Anchorhead in the morning and have R2's memory erased and similarly stonewalls on the subject of her father. What's a little different is that Beru broaches the topic of Leia transmitting her application to the Academy, but Leia insists she stay for the harvest, promising she'll go next year.
Despite all of this, her mind is still uneasy. Erasing the droid's memory won't solve anything if the Empire tracks it here, and despite what she'd like to admit to herself the mention of a Kenobi having some connection with her father stirs a long buried restlessness; a need to find out the truth. Oh and when she goes up to watch the suns set as she contemplates her next move, we don't get the force theme, but the more ominous, foreboding track originally composed for this scene.
Her mind made up, Leia sets out with the two droids at first light. She tells Beru she's headed for Tosche Station to pick up the power converters Owen wanted, but instead cuts across the jundland wastes to try and catch up with the Jawas before the Imperials do, with the intent to give/sell the two droids back and keep her family off the Empire's radar (or scanners, whatever!)
Everything is going fine until they're ambushed by a Tusken scouting party, while trying to squeeze the speeder though a narrow pass halfway up a canyon wall. Threepio panics and tumbles out of the speeder, down the side of the canyon, smashing into the boulder strewn gorge. Leia downs one raider with her rifle, but takes a glancing blow from a gaderffii to the back of the head and blacks out. When she comes to, the Tuskens have mysteriously fled and Ben is standing over her, hand on her forehead. Yadda-yadda-yadda. "Obi-Wan Kenobi." "Threepio!" "Quickly! They're on the move!" etc. etc.
This last bit plays out a little differently as I switched the perspective away from R2 to Leia instead. That's because this time around he still has the restraining bolt, and thus didn't run off in the night. Also, keeping it from Leia's perspective allows me to cut the fight short when she's knocked out and we don't have to deal with that whole weird krayt dragon call bit. Indeed, not knowing how Ben scared off the Tuskens would add a little to his mystique, especially when combined with his unassuming demeanour.
That's it for now; more later.
Oh right I was supposed to be thinking about this, wasn't I?
OK; so I think we've reach the point where character takes a back seat and plot largely takes over for a while. From Ben's hovel to the prison break thinks pretty much have to happen as they did with Luke.
Leia's reaction to Ben's urging that she go with him to Alderaan would be largely the same, though perhaps for slightly different reasons. For Luke it seemingly mostly motivated by fear of the unknown; for all his daydreaming for adventure, when confronted with a genuine chance to step out into the galaxy, he recoiled and sought solace in the familiar. For Leia I think it would be motivated more from a genuine sense of responsibility to her Aunt & Uncle (building on what I've already established.) But whichever way you cut it, the hero must first refuse the call to action, which is exactly what she does.
Small side note here: I'm gone and created for myself a minor continuity bump with Artoo's restraining bolt. In the movie of course it's removed back at the garage which is how he was able to run off. Threepio's gets knocked off during the Tusken fight when he falls off the clifftop. There was actually a moment in the "Ben's Cave" scene that seems to have been filmed but cut when they scene was chopped up and re-ordered in the edit where Luke goes to re-attach it, but Threepio recoils a little, so he thinks better of it. I say I think it was filmed because if you watch the scene, you can see the restraining bolt prop sat on the furs next to Hamill. So in the final film it's essentially forgotten about.
In this version of events; Threepio would still loose the bolt in the fight and Leia may have a similar moment of compassion when repairing him. But what about Artoo? Pretty sure the "restraining bolt is short-circuiting his recording system" was just a BS ploy to get it off, so it's not necessary to remove it to play the full message for Obi-Wan. One might presume that after seeing Threepio's reaction, Leia comes to a silent decision and removes Artoo's as well since so far as she's concerned the droids rightfully belong to Obi-Wan more than her. Or perhaps she goes to hand Ben the caller, but he says something like "oh I don't think that will be necessary", then waves his hand and pops it off with the force.
Personally I'm inclined to think the latter happened, but as in the movie, it got edited out because it doesn't matter overmuch, so let's move on!
So we're pretty much on plot rails now; on the way to dropping Ben off an Anchorhead they run across the disabled Sandcrawler and the remains of the Jawa clan. Coming to same conclusion, a horrified Leia rushes off home only to find it a smoking ruin already. Back to Ben to tell his she wants to learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi like her father; there's nothing here for her now.
The cantina scene has a few possible choices to make; I think if this were George making that scene in 1976 that the fight wouldn't have been a drunk barfly taking a dislike to Leia, but making a pass at her . . . but I don't like the connotation of that in light of Ben having to use lethal force to save her, so I'm inclined to keep things as they are. Leia is just as out of her element as Luke was, gets thrown into a table by an intoxicated thug, and limb loss ensues. Plus of course it's a vital scene for the audience to understand how capable Old Ben really is at this point in the story.
I'm honestly not certain how to handle Han & Leia in this version of the story. Thinking long term; if she's on the path of the Jedi then I think the romance angle should be out altogether (at least so far as she's concerned.) Indeed, Han may not be in the next movie hardly at all for this very reason. (I can't see him coming back to the Hoth Command Centre to get Prince Luke, can you?)
So in terms of the character dynamic in this movie, I think it should be somewhere between the Han/Luke dynamic and the Han/Rey dynamic. More of an older brother vibe than anything even approaching romance.
So, she sells her speeder, they shoot their way out of Docking Bay 94, have a zatochi lightsaber exercise with a remote, asteroid field, "that's no moon!" etc. etc.
The next bit requires a little more thought. They still obviously take out the guards & scanning crew, then the hangar control crew as in the original. Though as mentioned up-thread I don't think it's credible that Leia would fit inside Stormtrooper armour, so she'd either have to wear the scanning crew overalls or the officers uniform.
The next problem is the prison break: I'm thinking Leia being Leia she actually has a clear plan and exit strategy. Also talking Han into it is a lot easier since as an experienced negotiator; she goes right for bribery.
As for the plan itself; I'm thinking she has Artoo bring up the plans for the detention block, sees that the only way out is the garbage chute. But rather than shooting her way through; she instead concocts some kind of bluff to get past the guards. Maybe showing up with a falsified work order to check the integrity of the laser gate, while sending Han & Chewie down to stand by the garbage masher's maintenance hatch.
Once in the detention block, she intentionally trips a security lockdown; activating the laser gate and turning the security blasters against the guards. Since she's not wearing trooper armour like Luke was, she's actually able to bring the lightsaber along, concealed with the toolkit. Uses it to cut Luke out of his cell, open the garbage chute grating, and escape down it safely using an ascension cable.
By the time Trooper re-enforcements show up, they're long gone. Han & Chewie are waiting with a security officer's uniform for Leia, and a second set of Trooper armour to hide Luke in. With that, they calmly had back towards the hangar complex with Chewie playing the part of the prisoner.
That's all probably a little too smooth and the story still needs some action at this point, so let's say the jig is up the moment then run into another patrol and can't produce the appropriate clearance for being in this section. Leia attempts to talk her way though, but Han just shoots them first, and a running battle to the Falcon ensues. It was a boring conversation anyway . . .
OK; so I think we've reach the point where character takes a back seat and plot largely takes over for a while. From Ben's hovel to the prison break thinks pretty much have to happen as they did with Luke.
Leia's reaction to Ben's urging that she go with him to Alderaan would be largely the same, though perhaps for slightly different reasons. For Luke it seemingly mostly motivated by fear of the unknown; for all his daydreaming for adventure, when confronted with a genuine chance to step out into the galaxy, he recoiled and sought solace in the familiar. For Leia I think it would be motivated more from a genuine sense of responsibility to her Aunt & Uncle (building on what I've already established.) But whichever way you cut it, the hero must first refuse the call to action, which is exactly what she does.
Small side note here: I'm gone and created for myself a minor continuity bump with Artoo's restraining bolt. In the movie of course it's removed back at the garage which is how he was able to run off. Threepio's gets knocked off during the Tusken fight when he falls off the clifftop. There was actually a moment in the "Ben's Cave" scene that seems to have been filmed but cut when they scene was chopped up and re-ordered in the edit where Luke goes to re-attach it, but Threepio recoils a little, so he thinks better of it. I say I think it was filmed because if you watch the scene, you can see the restraining bolt prop sat on the furs next to Hamill. So in the final film it's essentially forgotten about.
In this version of events; Threepio would still loose the bolt in the fight and Leia may have a similar moment of compassion when repairing him. But what about Artoo? Pretty sure the "restraining bolt is short-circuiting his recording system" was just a BS ploy to get it off, so it's not necessary to remove it to play the full message for Obi-Wan. One might presume that after seeing Threepio's reaction, Leia comes to a silent decision and removes Artoo's as well since so far as she's concerned the droids rightfully belong to Obi-Wan more than her. Or perhaps she goes to hand Ben the caller, but he says something like "oh I don't think that will be necessary", then waves his hand and pops it off with the force.
Personally I'm inclined to think the latter happened, but as in the movie, it got edited out because it doesn't matter overmuch, so let's move on!
So we're pretty much on plot rails now; on the way to dropping Ben off an Anchorhead they run across the disabled Sandcrawler and the remains of the Jawa clan. Coming to same conclusion, a horrified Leia rushes off home only to find it a smoking ruin already. Back to Ben to tell his she wants to learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi like her father; there's nothing here for her now.
The cantina scene has a few possible choices to make; I think if this were George making that scene in 1976 that the fight wouldn't have been a drunk barfly taking a dislike to Leia, but making a pass at her . . . but I don't like the connotation of that in light of Ben having to use lethal force to save her, so I'm inclined to keep things as they are. Leia is just as out of her element as Luke was, gets thrown into a table by an intoxicated thug, and limb loss ensues. Plus of course it's a vital scene for the audience to understand how capable Old Ben really is at this point in the story.
I'm honestly not certain how to handle Han & Leia in this version of the story. Thinking long term; if she's on the path of the Jedi then I think the romance angle should be out altogether (at least so far as she's concerned.) Indeed, Han may not be in the next movie hardly at all for this very reason. (I can't see him coming back to the Hoth Command Centre to get Prince Luke, can you?)
So in terms of the character dynamic in this movie, I think it should be somewhere between the Han/Luke dynamic and the Han/Rey dynamic. More of an older brother vibe than anything even approaching romance.
So, she sells her speeder, they shoot their way out of Docking Bay 94, have a zatochi lightsaber exercise with a remote, asteroid field, "that's no moon!" etc. etc.
The next bit requires a little more thought. They still obviously take out the guards & scanning crew, then the hangar control crew as in the original. Though as mentioned up-thread I don't think it's credible that Leia would fit inside Stormtrooper armour, so she'd either have to wear the scanning crew overalls or the officers uniform.
The next problem is the prison break: I'm thinking Leia being Leia she actually has a clear plan and exit strategy. Also talking Han into it is a lot easier since as an experienced negotiator; she goes right for bribery.
As for the plan itself; I'm thinking she has Artoo bring up the plans for the detention block, sees that the only way out is the garbage chute. But rather than shooting her way through; she instead concocts some kind of bluff to get past the guards. Maybe showing up with a falsified work order to check the integrity of the laser gate, while sending Han & Chewie down to stand by the garbage masher's maintenance hatch.
Once in the detention block, she intentionally trips a security lockdown; activating the laser gate and turning the security blasters against the guards. Since she's not wearing trooper armour like Luke was, she's actually able to bring the lightsaber along, concealed with the toolkit. Uses it to cut Luke out of his cell, open the garbage chute grating, and escape down it safely using an ascension cable.
By the time Trooper re-enforcements show up, they're long gone. Han & Chewie are waiting with a security officer's uniform for Leia, and a second set of Trooper armour to hide Luke in. With that, they calmly had back towards the hangar complex with Chewie playing the part of the prisoner.
That's all probably a little too smooth and the story still needs some action at this point, so let's say the jig is up the moment then run into another patrol and can't produce the appropriate clearance for being in this section. Leia attempts to talk her way though, but Han just shoots them first, and a running battle to the Falcon ensues. It was a boring conversation anyway . . .
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How would they found out which cell Luke is in? R2 didn't seem to have that detail.
Would it make sense for them to "accidentally" open Luke's cell, rather than have Leia know how good a lightsaber cuts? Have the following lockdown cause an issue with the plan, but Luke knows what a lightsaber can do, having at the least seen Kanan use one, if not Ben back when Luke was ten. Have him suggest the lightsaber, if nothing else but to help with the escape.
Would it make sense for them to "accidentally" open Luke's cell, rather than have Leia know how good a lightsaber cuts? Have the following lockdown cause an issue with the plan, but Luke knows what a lightsaber can do, having at the least seen Kanan use one, if not Ben back when Luke was ten. Have him suggest the lightsaber, if nothing else but to help with the escape.
Why wouldn't Leia know how well a lightsaber cuts? Ben already gave her a lesson on the Falcon and one would think "careful now, that blade can cut though almost anything" would be something he'd mention before letting her wave it around blindfolded. Plus of course she saw it take someone's arm off already, and it's literally a plasma blade. Why wouldn't it cut though a door? I don't know; this doesn't feel like a thing that needs to be explained. The movies certainly never bothered to address it directly. Probably because "sword made of lasers can cut though anything" feels like a fairly natural intuitive leap for this kind of pulpy adventure story.
That reminds me though: I was thinking they still get attacked by the dianoga, but she makes short work of if it because again; unlike Luke she actually brought the sabre with her!
As for the cell number . . . eh. A minor detail. I did think about having her bring Artoo with her as part of her cover as a maintenance tech, and he could plug into the main console and get the cell number that way . . . but that means he'd have to go down the chute and then follow them around during all the chase sequences which seems a little unlikely. Much easier for there to be a cell directory in the corridor right by the laser gate and Leia just read that.
Or Artoo did get that info, but in the original version of events; they didn't think to check with him until they were already there anyway. It was after all, a very poorly planned rescue.
Or alternatively the "fault" Leia is coming to check is on Luke's cell door, so she gets the cell number from the officer before tripping the gate.
Or even simpler; after the security blasters take care of all the guards, Leia turns the grid back off, checks the directory on the main console before using it to lock down the turbolifts and reset the system before heading to the cell. Either way it amounts to the same thing; point being she actually thinks about how to get out before going in.
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I am just thinking of mirroring the original's structure. The original it is Luke's story, but Leia does come up with some solutions to their problems, as she's not much of a damsel in distress, but more capable once the door was open. In this version, it is Leia's story, but Luke still needs to be useful, rather than just be a human object for them to recover.
I don't know, I think making the Prince look like a bit of a damsel for the escape at least feels symmetrical enough.
I've often assumed that in the movie, the garbage chute was always Leia's escape plan when they came to take her for execution. I mean the person Luke barges in on does not look like someone who's helplessly awaiting her death; that's a person with a clear plan of escape. I'm guessing she was going to make a grab for the officer's sidearm, blast the grate and the troopers, then tackle the officer down the chute with her so she could use his rank cylinder to open the hatch and his uniform to slip away, deactivate the tractor beam, commandeer a ship and flee. So it tracks that she'd use the same plan in both realities.
But like I said; Luke would still be in trooper armour in the mad dash back to the hangar with all the shooty-shooty action that involves.
One could also recreate the chasm swing more or less as is, though with a shift in tone of Leia being frustrated by his cavalier nature when he shoots out the control panel. He still comes up with using the grapnel line to swing across, and we get to skip the (in hindsight) awkward "good luck" kiss. Make it more of a bickering sibling relationship from the jump.
