Luke’s Plan to Free Han In Return of the Jedi Makes Total Sense (Kind Of)
Every few years, some people realize that Luke Skywalker’s plan to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt in the opening act of Return of the Jedi doesn’t seem to make much sense. This year, however, this realization spawned a bunch of articles and videos about the “revelation” that Han Solo’s rescue was actually a shitshow. On the surface, they appear to be right. It would be a stretch to say that how the events unfolded was Luke’s plan all along, so it’s a huge writing screw-up, right? Wrong.
In the video below, Jessica Chobot of Nerdist lays out the case that this was all just haphazard nonsense, but below I will explain both what Luke’s plan seemed to be at the onset, why it went wrong, and how these events served the story. Even though Han was rescued, Luke’s “plan” was an utter failure. Yet, without it, he would have never actually been a Jedi.
Before I get into all that, though, I will admit it is possible that Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas did just try to write up a caper where the gang rescues Han and everything just goes to…
