I would agree and that Leia’s part in the plan was simply to get Han defrosted. Of course she was going to get caught, there was no way to extract all of the assets without Jabba taking them outside.
Sure, the plan required everything to go right, and I think getting thrown in with the rancor was not part of the plan. But, hey Luke was a badass because he showed a little adaptability.
I’d like to know why Lando, who was a widely-traveled confidence man and gambler and had obviously had wide contact with the Hutt species because of that (they were generally ALL ethically challenged, and often crime lords), didn’t warn Luke that the entire species was immune to Force-enabled mind control.
Why would Lando know of that? The Jedi were all but extinct, and knowledge of, let alone belief in, the Force was probably not something for Lando.
He may not have known. Assuming Lando is in his mid-30s the Jedi would have gone under the ‘Special Order (Route) 66’ thing while he was in his teens at best. It’s very likely that what Lando knows about Jedi and the force are rumors and his experiences with Luke and Vader. It’s not what you’d call comprehensive.
As for Luke’s plan? He trusted to the living force. Nothing else is necessary to explain his actions. And that’s a sign he’s matured as a Jedi.
They weren’t extinct THAT long…Lando would have been a child when Palpatine executed Order 66. And if I were a con man/gambler/smuggler in a galaxy where Hutts pretty much controlled organized crime, I think I’d want to know every single defense and weakness they had. Just because Jedi were gone doesn’t mean Force-sensitivity was. Considering that the Force could be used by unscrupulous Force-sensitives to manipulate things like dice or Sabacc cards, it’s not something that he would reasonably have NOT known about, I’d think.
Yes, Han expressed contempt for the whole Jedi thing in combat. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an idiocyncrasy of Han’s.
Who said Luke told Lando of his plan anyway? I think he was just more like, “I’m still working it out, but you can infiltrate it in the meantime, and I’ll get you out.”
What irritates me more is that Lando lifts his helmet. Don’t do that! You can find a different way to signal the audience. Why don’t you make your hands into two guns and go “Colt .45!” for heaven’s sakes!
That’s a good point.
snerk
If I were Luke, I’d be more pissed about Lando not telling me about that trap door in the middle of Hutt’s audience hall.
One of the books did have Mara Jade infiltrated in Jabba’s palace as well. The Emporer had her there to kill Luke and via some Force dream or fever blister or something, she saw that were she actually on the sail barge, she would have intercepted the lightsaber and created a different outcome where Luke and his crew are killed.
There was another short story in one of the books where the R5D4 droid is Force sensitive and blows up its own motivator in order to ensure that R2 and 3PO get to Luke in ANH. I think that’s a bit of a stretch myself.
How? I didn’t think Luke and Lando had any contact once Lando infiltrated Jabba’s palace. And once Luke came in, he went straigt to Jabba. When did Lando have a chance?
As none of this happened in the movie, it remains a bit of a hole.
But, we’re overanalyzing here.
It’s clear that Luke has a wide range of plans, contingency plans, and backups, as evidenced by the fact he tries several ways of getting Han out. He’s got moles in position, and of course, he trusts the Force; he also happens to be one of the ass-kickingest individuals in the galaxy so there’s that, too. Had R2D2 not been in position he’d have probably had some other scheme, like having the light saber passed to Lando. Things clearly get more dangerous than he would have liked, but there was a plan.
Brings lots of body bags
I’ve about split my face grinning. 
Here’s what I think:
Leia shows up to get Han. She knows that the droids, Lando, and Chewie are there. Her mission is to get Han out. Anything more would be too difficult.
Corollary to point #1, if the plan goes the way it’s supposed to, Lando’s job is to get Chewie out of the prison.
Lando infiltrates the Hutt lair, with the knowledge that the droids will be coming at some point. In an ideal situation, he’s relaying the info that he’s discovered to 3PO, who, as a protocol droid/translator, probably has access to communications equipment (including some that may be an internal modification). If 3PO can’t relay the info to Luke, then there’s the chance that R2 can, as he’s shown an ability to hack computer systems before.
Once he’s in Jabba’s palace, Lando has no real way of discerning whether Jabba is Force immune (side note: is it possible that the Hutts are not Force immune, and that this is an isolated mutation in Jabba? I read several of the books after the Original Trilogy, but I don’t remember this specific point). There may be rumors that the Hutts are Force immune, but it could be the truth, or part of the lore surrounding Jabba himself in his home (think of the recent trend of Chuck Norris jokes).
Once everything goes to hell, there are an awful lot of convenient circumstances. The rescue could very well have been unsuccessful if not for a blinded Han knocking Boba Fett in the back, and off the skiff.
I’m beginning to think that the Force is like Ka in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It controls you, instead of the other way around.
It’s not that Hutts in general are Force-immune; it’s that the strong-willed are immune to Force suggestion. Consider the folks we’ve seen it work on: “Just follow orders” soldiers, drug dealers, and Gungans. Presumably, a Hutt who was just some lowly toady for a crime lord would likewise be vulnerable, and a human(oid) crime lord or other holder of a position of significant responsibility would resist it.
Indeed. Vader could have used his mind control techniques to get the location of the stolen plans and the rebel base from Leia in Episode IV without resorting to a torture/drug droid. So we know some humans are immune, too. (In other words, the strong willed.)
Good point. Like I said, I hadn’t read the books in a while, so I wasn’t sure if there was additional info there.
I think it’s entirely possible that Luke didn’t have much of a plan at all. The Jedi are highly intuitive by nature. When Obi-Wan is training Luke, he tells him to stop thinking about blocking the blasts from the training orb, and trust the force to guide him. Obi-Wan was trained by Qui-Gonn, who was some sort of Force mystic who believed that the way to establish the strongest connection with the Force was to act almost entirely impulsively, allowing the Force to guide you in all things, without allowing thoughts and emotions to intrude. I think it’s entirely possible that Luke’s plan was no more complicated than, “Let’s get everyone into Jabba’s palace and see what happens.”
Note, also, this would be a strong contrast with the Sith, who spin up plots that can take centuries to come to fruition.
I think you’ll find this sort of thing pretty rife in action movies in general, and anything associated with George Lucas in particular:
Indiana Jones: Meet me at Omar’s. Be ready for me. I’m going after that truck.
Sallah: How?
Indiana Jones: I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go!
I don’t think Jones hopped a Pan Am Clipper to Tibet in order to end up on a remote island in the Med surrounded by a bunch of melted Nazis, only to then turn the Ark over to Army Intelligence to be boxed up along with crates of surplus .30-40 Krag ammo, boxes of Eleanor Roosevelt’s discarded housedresses, and a careworn child’s sled named “Rosebud”, but if he had, he’d have probably stayed home grading term papers and reading an H. Rider Haggard novel.
Or, in short, only evil villains make plans. Good guys don’t bother to plan; things just work out for them.
James Bond: You don’t think this is a very good plan, do you?
Vesper Lynd: So there is a plan? I got the impression we were risking millions of dollars and hundreds of lives on a game of luck.
Stranger
Except for the Jedi mind trick, that also pretty much describes a typical Kirk/Picard strategy, as well.
My guess here is that Luke is able to see the future, and knew everything that would come to pass, but he couldn’t tell anybody because they had to follow their natural instincts for events to come out as foretold.