Han and Leia both want Luke so bad. It’s all there in the subtext.
But there’s more to an argument than just contradiction!
Han wants Leia. Luke wants Leia. Leia wants Han. Leia makes it seem as if she wants Luke. Han mistakenly concludes that Leia actually wants Luke. Leia corrects him. That’s a weak love triangle, but (a) like the man said, it gets strengthened by our usual storytelling expectations about the designated hero who rescues the beautiful princess with help from the wisecracking rogue, though (b) IMHO it barely suffices even without that.
This has been my point all along. Luke doesn’t want Leia. He wants to be a Jedi. I’m watching Empire right now. What we imagine should be in the movie doesn’t make it so. What we have is a romance between Han and Leia and for it to develop they need obstacles. Leia is very resistant to even admit she loves Han when it is obvious from the first shot of her when she’s watching Han tell the General that he’s leaving. Han is pissed when she won’t admit it when he tells her goodbye.
Later, when they both visit Luke in the sickbay, Han shows his ass and rides her pretty sarcastically. In a moment of anger, she kisses Luke to show that he’s full of himself.
Leia isn’t even nice to Han until his trick to stick to the side of the Star Destroyer. Shutting C3P0 off is the catalyst.
At this point, Leia is now open to Han. Now that she has let her guard down, she reveals that she doesn’t dislike Han, she’s upset that he’s leaving.
Eventually, Han wears her down and she admits that she loves him. Of course, he has known this all along, which is why when he tells her, “I know,” it’s not a joke but the payoff because he has known all along. It’s the most inspired line in the entire movie. It shows that instead of just going by the numbers and making a cliche love scene they GOT IT! The only one who didn’t know that Leia loved Han was Leia.
It’s very straightforward. People are taking their expectations and conflating them with misinterpretations of scenes and misremembering what they saw. It doesn’t help that they intended to have a triangle so they set it up in Star Wars, but dropped it in Empire. Someone earlier mentioned Luke comforting Leia at the loss of Han Solo at the end of Empire as being a sign of romance between the two. Comments like that are so obtuse they don’t even deserve a response, let alone the dignity I’ve given them. I’ve just finished Empire with the commentary on and not once did they mention any sort of relationship between Luke and Leia. Now I am watching Jedi. George does mention casually about “resolving all the triangles we set up.” This doesn’t actually contradict what I’ve argued. He did set up a triangle in the first movie. He abandoned it in the second movie and third movie then gave us a superfluous resolution. Plus, he states several times that he will put things in the movie to make them definitive for children who are watching. Like the Vader being dad issue, for example. He said that he spoke with child psychologists about it and they told him that if it was too much for them, then children could and would just believe that Vader is lying. I even remember back in the day believing Vader was lying. Now, watching it, it’s obvious they weren’t trying to deceive. “Ben, why didn’t you tell me?” Anyway, Yoda gave the revelation to make it definitive for the children.
I paid special attention to the scene early on where she doesn’t tell Han what Luke has just told her. It’s a momentary bit of annoyance on his part that she doesn’t trust him enough to tell him the “secret”. That’s not a “love” jealousy. Even if it was, she diffuses it immediately with her, “Hold me.” The line at the ending is such a weak peg to hang a triangle on. Dismissing whether or not you like the prequel trilogy, would you consider Obi Wan, Padme and Anakin a love triangle? He accuses her at the end of being with Obi Wan against him. That’s essentially no different than Han’s line at the end of the film.
I really don’t care if there is a “perceived” love triangle because of story conventions, expectations, or because it was set up in the first movie and a line at the end of the movie “acknowledges” it. I don’t care if you think Leia’s kiss of Luke means something (which makes me question your ability to actually pay attention to context and subtext at the expense of literalism). That has never been my point. My point has been that for all intents and purposes, there does not actually in the films exist what would be considered a Love Triangle outside of Luke’s brief infatuation with Leia in the first movie. What might be there is so weak as to be inconsequential. It is homeopathic. It is a straightforward romance between two characters with a bit of conflict thrown in to make it interesting. Pointing to some vague friendly affections does not make it something it’s not. Luke has a perfectly complete and satisfying story arc that he doesn’t need to be shoehorned into the “B” story.
You’ll never be able to make your case, caligula, it’s just not there to be made.
Of course not, when all it takes is “No it isn’t,” to dispute it. Why am I so silly to actually think presenting a well thought out and extensively backed case with cites of dialogue and scenes to prove everything I’ve said would work when I could have simply made assertions that I don’t have to back up with anything.
IMHO, it’s rather the opposite.
If you didn’t grant that it was set up in the first movie, then it’d sure be an uphill battle for literalism at the expense of context and subtext to create an argument with the kiss. But if we’re all on the same page about how it was set up in the first movie, then that’s the context for the kiss – which unnecessarily gets further bolstered by story conventions and expectations, but never mind that now.
Sure, what happens in the second movie is weak. But if it was set up in the first movie, then IMHO we only need “weak” in the second movie to keep it coasting into the third movie:
. . . because nothing strong in the second movie derailed what got set up in the first one, and so we don’t need anything strong to keep it going; even something weak, like the kiss, will suffice for a minor subplot in a kid-friendly movie.
Please point out to me something in the second movie that indicates this. I just watched it again. It’s not there. It’s definitely not in the kiss. Read my previous post. I showed the context and the text of that scene. It has nothing to do with Leia wanting Luke and Luke is passive in the scene. She’s mad that Han is leaving. It’s her only story arc in that film. And what does story conventions and expectations really have to do with anything? Luke’s storyline is to become a Jedi and face Vader. Han’s (in the first movie) was to overcome his materialism and self-interest to become a better human being with an interest in what’s happening in the world (this is Lando’s in the second movie. Lando represents what Han was before he met the gang). Han’s in the second movie is to get Leia to finally admit she loves him. Leia’s is to admit that she loves Han. What you keep saying is that the audience is so stupid they can’t follow this and need to make up their own story by assuming that the story is going to go in a different direction than it goes. Where is this minor subplot? If it was a plot, subplot, or anything, there would be some indication of it in the movie. What does Luke do to Leia that he wouldn’t to his brother had they been in the same situation? You keep making assertions without backing them up.
Er, yes, that’s all in your previous post.
Now read one of my previous posts:
Why you’re trying to argue that “It has nothing to do with Leia wanting Luke” is beyond me; I’m not making that claim. Your post merely establishes the following:
“she leans over and kisses Luke on the lips. Then she turns on her heel and walks out, leaving everyone in the room slightly dumbstruck. With some smugness, Luke puts his hands behind his head and grins.”
[QUOTE=caligulathegod]
And what does story conventions and expectations really have to do with anything? Luke’s storyline is to become a Jedi and face Vader. Han’s (in the first movie) was to overcome his materialism and self-interest to become a better human being with an interest in what’s happening in the world (this is Lando’s in the second movie. Lando represents what Han was before he met the gang). Han’s in the second movie is to get Leia to finally admit she loves him. Leia’s is to admit that she loves Han. What you keep saying is that the audience is so stupid they can’t follow this and need to make up their own story by assuming that the story is going to go in a different direction than it goes. Where is this minor subplot? If it was a plot, subplot, or anything, there would be some indication of it in the movie. What does Luke do to Leia that he wouldn’t to his brother had they been in the same situation? You keep making assertions without backing them up.
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No, it’s too late for that.
You don’t get to play the card about the audience ‘making up their own story’ and then asking ‘where is this minor subplot? If it was a plot, subplot, or anything, there would be some indication of it in the movie.’ You don’t get to do that after agreeing that “it was set up in the first movie” and then quoting George Lucas as describing the third movie as “resolving all the triangles we set up”. It’s not about the audience being stupid; it’s arguably about George being stupid, but that’s irrelevant.
We’ve established that something is there. You’re the one asserting that it got set up in the first movie. You’re the one asserting that the triangles get resolved in the third movie. Those aren’t assertions that I need to back up; that’s just me repeating your assertions back to you.
[QUOTE=caligulathegod]
What does Luke do to Leia that he wouldn’t to his brother had they been in the same situation?
[/QUOTE]
Grin with smugness after getting kissed on the lips?
It has to do with everything. You’re asking how people can possibly be so ignorant that they think there is a love triangle in the Star Wars trilogy. A big part of the answer lies in story conventions, but you don’t think that is an answer good enough so you dismiss it in its entirety and instead persist on dancing around the fact.
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A hero in white who goes from being a helping hand at his uncle’s farm to saving the galaxy from an evil empire.
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A princess.
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Some guy with a fast ship.
That’s your answer right there.
It’s not an interactive movie. Once upon a time, before video games, there were these things called movies that told a story. You couldn’t interrupt them and make them change it to what you thought it should be. Sometimes what made them exciting was that they went into directions you didn’t expect.
But she doesn’t. Nowhere does she make Han think she wants Luke. Watch the scene prior to the kiss scene and then the kiss scene. Han is being a sarcastic prick because she had rebuffed him in the South passage. She is in denial that she wants him to stay because she loves him and is embarrassed at being called on it. She does the first thing that comes to mind and that’s kiss someone, anyone, because that’s something she’s “never going to do to Han.” Luke, on the other hand is completely passive in that scene. The whole time Han is showing his ass, Luke is smirking, rolling his eyes at Han’s antics. When Leia delivers that topper, she made a funny joke at Han’s expense and Luke is riding the joke. If he actually wanted Leia, then he would have stopped Han when he left. He would have done something to pursue Leia later. He never does. The scene that DID indicate that was specifically cut out. The Luke wants Leia subplot was among many that was cut.
Sigh. The audience making up their own story is NOT a minor subplot. If I watch The Passion of the Christ and think it’s a steamy love story because I don’t understand what the word Passion (in the context of the Christ story) means doesn’t make it a minor subplot. And I fully acknowledged that they set up a potential triangle in the first one (it doesn’t exist yet, they just set it up for the next movie), but then they decided to drop it and not pursue it, by which I mean it does not exist in Empire Strikes Back whatsoever. I’ve already pointed to where it DID exist and how it was cut out. The price of them cutting those scenes (scene?) was that it ended up Luke and Leia have no interaction in the film. So, here we have this supposed love triangle between characters that don’t interact. And, again, the last line of dialog in the movie didn’t get rid of the elephant in the room of the unresolved love affair between Luke and Leia. It was a bone thrown to the children and the denser audience members who just can’t accept why Leia spurned that nice boy Luke.
A Love Triangle means something specific. It takes more than, well one character kind of thinks another is cute early on or another uses another for a bit of a joke or to make a point. If I were trying to argue that the Star Wars trilogy is a metaphor for our involvement in Viet Nam and the Ewoks represented the Viet Cong, and Luke, Leia, and Han represent the Ego, Superego and Id while Darth Vader symbolizes Want and Luke becomes a hero because he wants to avoid having sex with his mother, symbolized by the light saber and blah blah, then that’s one thing. I’m not arguing metaphor, opinion, symbolism, or anything like that. In Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, there is literally no Luke Loves Leia aspect to the story. He doesn’t mention her, interact with her, talk with her (until he tells her she’s his sister) the entire trilogy. Han’s line at the end of Jedi is too little, too late to indicate a Love Triangle from the previous 6 + hours of movies. He’s had it reinforced the whole movie, including the one conflict scene they had (the “secret”) that Leia loves HIM.
No, she does.
Han Solo: I’m sure Luke wasn’t on that thing when it blew.
Princess Leia: He wasn’t. I can feel it.
Han Solo: You love him, don’t you?
Princess Leia: Yes.
Han Solo: All right. I understand. Fine. When he comes back, I won’t get in the way.
As we know – from you – the groundwork for that was laid in the first movie; this isn’t Han coming up with a new idea right here, since (a) it’s the triangle you say got set up in STAR WARS, and (b) it’s the triangle you say George Lucas wanted to resolve in RETURN OF THE JEDI.
George Lucas is not the audience; you are.
George Lucas is, as per your proffered quote, the one who considers it a triangle; George Lucas believes he set a triangle up, and George Lucas believes it’s now being resolved. Trying to shift this onto the audience is missing the point; once George Lucas tells us it’s a triangle, you’re the audience making up its own story.
From your perspective, I’m the guy who thinks the Passion of the Christ is a steamy love story. From my perspective, you’re the guy who thinks the Passion of the Christ is a steamy love story. From the perspective of George Lucas – you’re wrong.
Except for her kissing him full on the lips, of course.
Possibly it’ll help to shift gears for a moment.
Consider, say, SUPERMAN – where rather a lot of stuff gets set up in the first movie that gets shelved in the second and therefore can be picked right back up in the third. The first movie is about growing up in Smallville and being interested in Lana Lang before moving to the big city and getting walloped by Kryptonite – whereupon neither Kryptonite nor Lana nor Smallville show up in the second movie, but all of 'em are still in prime position to reconnect back in for the third, since none of 'em got removed (or even addressed) in the second.
And now imagine a second Superman movie which did, in fact, include a brief visit back to the Kent farm in Smallville, including a brief kiss with Lana, plus a brief encounter with Kryptonite. We didn’t need any of that to bridge the set-up from SUPERMAN I to SUPERMAN III; it worked just fine with nothing in SUPERMAN II. But if the filmmakers had included anything as a placeholder for that stuff, then it wouldn’t matter how weak it is; what matters is whether it gets set up in the first movie and resolved in the third with little more than a kiss in the second – as George Lucas would say when talking about an explicit triangle.
Hmm. You think it’s too little and too late; I disagree; one of us is misreading what George Lucas intended; George Lucas seems to think it’s not too little or too late to indicate a Love Triangle; possibly you’re missed his point both upon watching the movies and upon later hearing his commentary.
Every movie is not an island, it is created in a certain storytelling tradition and context. Sometimes one might see metaphors in a story that weren’t necessarily intended by the director, but yet again the director is reliant on certain techniques that have been accepted as movie language. You’ve even acknowledged this yourself in this thread, by referring to tropes as The Hero of a Thousand Faces.
In any which case, Star Wars is not Proust or Goethe. It’s a blockbusting adventure that wears its influences on its sleeves (old western, Kurosawa) and is totally comfortable with that. Besides, “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away” is basically just a paraphrase of “once upon a time”. Having expectations that Hero Gets Princess is therefore not out of line and is not a random creation of the degenerated video game generation.
What this resolved was the question of why Leia chose Han over Luke almost immediately (she never gave Luke a chance). After all, Luke rescued her. Why didn’t she go for Luke? Answer: Chicks dig the guy with the car. Lucas was always a car nut and the primary reason you pimped out your car was to impress the chicks. Luke thought she was pretty, but he was passive around her (“He’s the brains, sweetheart” “Well I… uh”). Han fell in love with her because she’s a 5 foot ball of spitfire. Perfect for someone like him (see any Bogart and Bacall movie). To finally resolve, not the love triangle, but why the love triangle never happened:
Han and Leia’s line at THE END OF THE MOVIE, when it is too late to affect anything, was to inform Han of this relationship in a dramatic flourish. It doesn’t mean he’s been seething the whole film thinking Leia is just passing time with him while she waits for Luke. It was simply a dramatic device to bring everyone full circle. Why didn’t Leia tell Han right away? It’s a freaking drama. She has just been told the most devastating news of her life. Darth Vader is HER FATHER and Luke, who turns out to be her brother (whom she has always thought of as a brother-hence the I’ve always known remark) is going off to face him. She needs to process this and is not ready for the full blown conversation that telling Han is going to cause. So she delays the revelation and just wants the man she loves to hold her tighter than she’s ever been held. When everything is solved at the end of the film, she can feel Luke and he’s still alive. This wistfulness confuses Han and he makes his statement about stepping off, because he loves her so much he would rather her be happy, even if it’s not with him. It then occurs to her that she had neglected to tell Han that Luke is her brother. She didn’t make him think she loved Luke. They were just at cross purposes. This does not make a Love Triangle.
You’ve been saying that there is a Love Triangle because we, the audience, think there’s a Love Triangle because of story conventions dictating the Hero (Luke) gets the girl (the Princess). Because we expect this it must necessarily be so. My comment about Passion of the Christ is about how someone could walk into a film and think because of the title that it will be about a passionate love affair or something, therefore it is, when Passion is actually a word that means great suffering.
Are you being obtuse on purpose? I quoted the scene, I quoted and explained the context. “Well they kissed. People only kiss when they are in love. Richard Dawson on Family Feud? He was in love with every one of those women and regularly fought with the husbands over their wives.” Her Kiss was to piss Han off, who was being an insufferable bastard with sarcasm and condescension. Luke’s smug smile was because Han got burned. If that Kiss meant more to either one of them, then one or the other would have made some effort to confront the other with his or her feelings. THIS NEVER HAPPENS. Luke goes off to become a Jedi and Han rescues the Princess and finally breaks down her emotional wall and makes her admit that she’s mad at him leaving because she does in fact love him. If Han pulled out a Jake LaMotta and asked Luke point blank if he fucked Leia, it STILL wouldn’t make it a Love Triangle. It would just make Han a confused jerk. This leads to another issue. You know how the ENTIRE trilogy depends upon that one Imperial Officer being an idiot and not firing on the escape pod with C3P0 and R2 in the first movie (“Hold your fire, there’s no life forms aboard.” No shit, you aren’t looking for life forms, you are looking for plans)? Leia’s selfishness of not letting Han go and pay off Jabba with the money so he could come back is what caused him to be in trouble in the first place.
Here’s the difference. Superman does in fact start up a romance with Lana Lang. It actually happens. Plus, Lois, Superman, and Lana aren’t a Love Triangle either. Superman broke up with Lois. She’s an ex-girlfriend.
George Lucas is the most unreliable voice when it comes to Star Wars. He is notorious for not only changing his mind, but for claiming he meant it that way to begin with. He is a walking revision. He’s also too close to the production. When you’ve been involved from concept to execution and been around every revision, it’s sometimes hard to remember what you’ve included and excluded. Regardless, I’ve given a reason for the clearing up the triangle which doesn’t have to do with there actually being a triangle, How do I know my interpretation is correct? Preponderance of the evidence. Context of the Kiss, both before and after explained in detail earlier. If is was a romantic kiss, then it would have been reprised. How about the Han and Leia scene? No further evidence of him seething through the rest of the movie because he thinks Leia might love Luke instead, plus a perfectly reasonable screenplay reason why she tells him at the end.
Even if you don’t agree with me, you have to admit it is a good argument.
That’s right. But get this. There are two tropes involved here. One is the Hero who becomes a warrior and the other is the mercenary who begins to think of the greater picture and becomes selfless. They are both heroes, but only one gets the girl. The mercenary trope is repeated with Lando. Just because the audience expects one trope and gets a different one doesn’t mean the audience’s expectations were correct by default.
There are exceptions to rule 34. Such as porn itself for example. There isn’t a porn of a porn. That would be metaporn and such a thing does not exist.
What does that mean? How is that an argument? Let’s get this over with. First we define a love triangle and then we check if the conditions have been met.
[QUOTE=wikipedia]
A love triangle is a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two. The relationships can be friendships, romantic, familial (often siblings), or even pre-existing hatred between rivals.
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It’s clear that there can only be one conclusion: yes, Star Wars does involve a weak LLH love triangle.
Do you REALLY want to count familial and friendships in this? If so, then why all the “what about the kiss, what about the kiss” stuff? Let’s spell it out so there’s no confusion. You are saying Han loves Leia because they are lovers. Luke and Leia love each other as Brother and Sister. Luke, Leia and Han are all friends. Therefore, this is a Love Triangle. Are you wanting to say that that is a Love Triangle. It’s a Love Triangle the same way mistletoe over the threshold is an orgy.
If you want to argue that then I’ve wasted my time here. Any three characters, in any movie, regardless of their relationships, are therefore Love Triangles. The word then loses its meaning. A traditional Love Triangle takes more than having two lover characters and then introducing a brother-in-law who otherwise has nothing to do with the other characters. It is a spurious argument. Is it that important to prove me wrong that you would accept such a pyrrhic victory?
I didn’t mean “degenerated video game generation”. I meant it as in having an audience that plays video games that enable the viewer to change the storyline and outcome of the game. Movies don’t do that. They tell a story and the audience absorbs the story. If it doesn’t meet expectations it makes it a novelty for the audience. The audience doesn’t get to change the film because they expected one trope and got another.
Having expectations of a certain trope (the hero gets the girl) is not out of line. The confusion here is who is the hero. The Hero DOES get the girl, and that Hero is HAN. Han becomes a hero by putting aside his selfish ego-centric ways and gets involved with the rebellion. He’s essentially Rick Blaine in Casablanca. He sticks his neck out for no one. By the end of the film, he sees the personal sacrifice of the other characters and becomes a hero by saving Luke at the Death Star trench. He also escorts Leia of Hoth.
Yeah, this is popcorn entertainment, but there is much more to it than just a fairy tale. There’s a reason it resonates with generation after generation.
I actually addressed this earlier, too.
No, I haven’t; you’ve misread my comments as thoroughly as you’ve misheard Lucas and mis-watched the movie. I believe story conventions strengthen it by playing on audience expectation, but I’ve said that a weak triangle exists in its own right even before we factor in any icing for the cake.
No, I’m correcting you. You stated that Luke and Leia have no interaction in the film; that’s incorrect; I corrected you. Your incorrect statement is copy-and-pasted right there; my correction is right under it; I’m now replying to your response.
That’s a beautiful sentence; I suggest you contemplate it at length, pondering each word one by one.
Yes, if you leave out what Han said right before she tells him that at the end, then you’d have a fine argument.