What Exactly Was Luke's Plan?

No really, what was supposed to be the plan here?

Welcome back! For new readers, I started this Substack mostly as an excuse to play with my action figures—but in order to have something to say about them, I also consider how these figures might serve as prompts for fiction and TRPG writing.

Today’s action figure honors Mark Hamill, and his admitted love of toys. And my admitted love of Mark Hamill.

That’s Mark on the left. Stupid jerk on the right barged his way into our picture.

A Long Time Ago…

I’ve been mulling this over for decades, and it still doesn’t make any sense.

What exactly was Luke Skywalker’s plan to rescue Han Solo?

DISCLAIMER: It’s entirely possible I’m getting my facts wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time, certainly not the last. And I am definitely not versed in expanded Star Wars canon that I’m guessing fully explains every nuance (along with the names of every background character). Still. What the fuck was the plan here?

Send in the Droids!

We start Return of the Jedi with Han Solo having been delivered to Jabba the Hutt, where he’s kept on display in carbon freeze.¹

Luke Skywalker, in order to set the pieces of his rescue plan in action, first has C-3P0 and R2-D2 arrive at Jabba’s palace under the auspices of a negotiation.

To build up a little dramatic tension, we see how challenging it is to even get past the front door. They’re nobodies, just a couple of beat-up old droids, they don’t have an appointment…

Oh, we’re opening the door for them anyway? Something about a gift? Well that’s a lucky stroke, I guess. Although, now we see how Jabba’s security is lacking, considering R2 is hiding a lightsaber up its robotic caboose, but apparently they don’t scan for that kind of thing.²

Instead of being competent, Jabba’s cronies are simply greedy. The mere hint of a gift being delivered is enough to admit the droids inside, as the guards are hoping to steal a “taste” of it for themselves.³

To be fair, so far so good. Despite an impenetrable steel door, we’ve learned that it’s only as good as the highly corruptible guards manning it.

This “gift” turns out to be droids themselves, however. A token of Luke’s appreciation for Jabba to enter into negotiations for Han.

But wait—what if Jabba took Luke up on his offer?

What if Jabba thought, hey, these Rebels just blew up a friggin’ Death Star. They have firepower. Or at least Batman-level planning. So Jabba doesn’t want them visiting Tatooine if negotiations fall through—and even if he can handle the Rebels, they’re still liable to draw the Empire after them, and now there’s even more heat coming his way.⁴

Jabba made his point, he had his fun—so what if he decided to release Han?

Does Luke show up to collect Han… but then has to come back the next day and ask if he can buy back the droids as well? Or just R2-D2 at least, because he’s carrying the brand-new lightsaber Luke just constructed for himself, symbol of his Jedi Order?

(Luke would be lucky if the droids were even still there! Jabba might’ve passed them on to some other smuggler as payment in kind, or had them pulled apart just for fun. We see him having droids pulled apart just for fun.)

C-3PO isn’t in on the plan, either. Presumably because of his cowardice, he can’t be trusted with it. So maybe in his cowardice (and stung from Master Luke’s betrayal) he starts talking about the Rebels’ location to Jabba in order to save his own ass. Was the rest of the Rebel Alliance really all that cool with Luke handing over a protocol droid that hasn’t had its memory erased, to a gangster who traffics in valuable information?

I Know, Let’s Add Even More Prisoners!

However awkward a successful negotiation would actually be, we never get to that point. Because Luke complicates things even further, endangering two more of his friends.⁵

The next part of his plan involves Princess Leia, disguised as a bounty hunter, delivering Chewbacca as her prisoner. Again, no worries about security—instead of a lightsaber, she’s able to carry a live thermal detonator inside.

And after negotiations for his bounty, Chewbacca is dragged off to Jabba’s dungeon.

(Good thing Jabba didn’t decide to drop Chewie into the Rancor Pit right away. He makes Leia wear that dancer costume. Maybe he plans to shave Chewbacca into some ridiculous haircut.)

Later that night, Leia sneaks back into the throne room to free Han. But… how was this part of the plan supposed to work? I mean, what if she succeeded and managed to smuggle her beloved smuggler out of the palace?

I imagine that while grateful for the rescue, Han would be pretty pissed that they effectively traded Chewbacca for him.

So… would Luke have to go back a second time? Hey, remember yesterday when I asked about getting those droids back? Do you think you could hook me up with a Wookie as well? Asking for a friend…

It’s like he’s trying to solve some weird galactic version of a riddle involving a fox, a chicken, and a sack of corn.

Only none of it works anyway, and Leia ends up captured as well.

So In Walks a Luke…

Now, if we’re to believe everything so far has gone exactly according to plan, Luke himself finally arrives at Jabba’s palace.

I don’t know why they even open the door for him. Jabba has everything and doesn’t want to negotiate, so why not tell him to go pound Tatooine sand? Why even have a door; they might as well just set it to open on an automatic motion sensor at this point.

In any case, both droids are in Jabba’s custody along with Luke’s lightsaber. Chewbacca’s somewhere in the dungeon. Han may be free of the carbonite, but he’s blind, weakened, and locked away as well. And Leia has spent the night humiliated as Jabba’s showpiece.⁶

But apparently everything is right where Luke wants it…

C’mon. Bull. Shit.

The given answer (I believe) is that Luke used the Force to foresee how everything would play out. He had a vision of his friends perfectly positioned to fight their way off Jabba’s sail barge and escape into the desert—weary and worn, but safely reunited at last.

No fucking way.

Luke may have continued his Jedi studies, but I can’t believe he perfected his Force vision to such a degree that he convinced his friends how an intricate plan involving placing them in the greatest possible danger was the way to go.

I mean, Luke doesn’t strike me as Doctor Strange calculating 14 million possibilities to come up with the one possible way to defeat Thanos.

He strikes me more as Indiana Jones, telling Salah that he’s making this all up as he goes when rescuing the Ark of the Covenants from a Nazi convoy. Only, if Indy then convinced Salah and Marion to line up along the truck route as speed bumps.

After all, Luke doesn’t exactly foresee the trapdoor sending him down to the Rancor. Was this still part of his plan? If so, why go through the motion of trying to steal a guard’s gun? Theater?

And what if that had worked? What if he shot Jabba and then fell to his own death, eaten by the Rancor?

Poetic, I guess. Luke would’ve died, but at least with Jabba gone, his friends might have actually escaped. I mean, Lando was apparently there the whole fucking time, waiting for something to do. He might’ve helped get them out in the ensuing commotion.

(Again! What if any earlier part of the plan had worked, if Jabba had decided to negotiate, or Leia managed to sneak off with Han. What would’ve happened to Lando? He’d just quietly put in his 2 weeks notice and leave at some point? Would Luke have to return a third time for him?)

A Bad Plan Makes a Poor Story

No, the only way to explain the side quest at Jabba’s palace is weak story logic. Luke doesn’t have an actual plan, it’s more like “concepts of a plan”. All that matters to the movie is that the main characters are staged such that with every step along the way, the situation seems to be getting worse and worse, until the final turn is made and the good guys win in the end.

Which is fine if these are all disconnected efforts. But to claim that they fall within the structure of a unified plan doesn’t make any sense to the audience, and while thrilling to watch unfold, certainly left me feeling confused and slightly cheated.

From a storytelling perspective, it makes a good narrative when there’s a plan, unexpected obstacles hit it along the way, but pivots are made to achieve the final goal.

Less interesting is when there’s a plan that unfolds without needing any pivots, and achieves the final goal.

Worst of all though, is when the plan is the obstacles and depends on them to achieve the goal. We’ve seen this trope in movies, with the villain’s plan depending upon their own capture. And in Return of the Jedi, with every effort needing to fail to set up the one situation that doesn’t.

That plan sucks.

Mark Hamill doesn’t.

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But Wait, An Alternate Explanation

Before I sign off, there is an explanation for Luke’s plan that makes a little more sense. When Luke finally shows up at the palace, he bullies his way inside—Force-choking the door guards and mind-controlling Bib Fortuna to grant him an audience.

Here, we see Luke already succumbing to the Dark Side of the Force. He’s using Dark Side powers, his body is already starting to be replaced with robotic parts, he’s even wearing black—all like his father of course, reminding us of the path his father once took.

It may be that overconfidence in his own abilities drove his plan. After all, once he faces Jabba, he fully expects to simply use his Jedi mind control to demand Han and Chewbacca be released (he neglects to mention Leia or the droids, but I guess one thing at a time). When Jabba throws him off his game, that’s when his plan falls apart and all hell breaks loose. In this scenario, Luke never foresaw things unfolding the way they did.⁷

Which makes a nice bookend to the climax of the movie. Emperor Palpatine has set up his own questionable plan, luring the entire Rebel Alliance to the new Death Star in order to trap and destroy them. He too is risking himself and his allies in this, likewise overconfident in his own abilities (including his actual Force vision of the future).

And in Palpatine’s case, overconfidence proves the undoing of his plan as well.

Which seems to be one of the true dangers of the Dark Side of the Force. It may be powerful, but just as keen to turn on the wielder and burn them instead.

1. I guess Jabba also collected Star Wars action figures, in a way.

2. Why not just send in a droid smuggling a bomb or something to threaten Jabba… or, that’s a later part of the plan? Got it.

3. A Death Star, as we see that it’s no longer the Death Star anymore. I also hated this about the second half of the movie.

4. And with Tatooine’s twin suns, it’s already hot enough as it is. Wakka wakka.

5. Who also happen to be Han’s best friend and love interest… er, respectively, of course.

6. See Skyfall or The Avengers, both from 2012. The Year of Bad Plans, apparently.

7. But which still doesn’t explain how Luke managed to convince everyone else to follow his stupid plan. Unless… Unless Luke used his mind-control powers on them!!!