Difficult to see, the future is. Always in motion is the future.
In Episode V, while Luke is sprawled out in the snow and a ghostly Obi-Wan shows up to tell Luke to head to the Dagoba system, didn’t Obi-Wan say that Yoda trained him?
Which is true, from a certain point of view. He certainly consulted with Yoda, or perhaps Yoda taught Qui-Gon, or perhaps Yoda talked to him when he was young.
He also said Vader betrayed and murdered Luke’s father, too.
I believe it goes
Yoda
Dooku
Qui-Gon Jinn
Obi-Wan Kenobi
—> Anakin Skywalker
--------> Ahsoka Tano
—> Luke Skywalker (interrupted)
Yoda
—> Luke Skywalker (completion)
So? MAYbe it counts? Certainly Yoda advised Obi-Wan about, say, the location of Kamino and such. Maybe helped him with his taxes? Something?
This. What kind of hero has a plan anyway? If he has a plan and it works then he is just another boring schemer, like an accountant or lawyer or something. Every movie hero trusts to luck and the poor aim of the bad guys, anything else is pedestrian.
I think this is very true, along with people who have said “Let’s get everyone in and see what plans we can make on the fly”. It’s sort of like the old joke about the blonde who prayed every week to win the Lotto but was told by God to “meet me halfway - buy a Lotto ticket!” The Force will help you and guide you, but not if you sit home curled into a ball. Only if you go out and do and try and attempt, then the Force flows through you and around you and maps out your path.
I liked the Force much better when it wasn’t midichlorians. Sigh.
I admit, though, I don’t mind scheming heroes, though I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. Doesn’t mean their plans always need to work, but generally the scheming ones are more Anti-Hero anyway.
Why would we assume Obi-Wan was only trained by Qui-Gon Jinn? When we meet him in The Phantom Menace he’s in his twenties. He might have been working with Qui-Gon for just a couple of months. As we are given scenes of Yoda teaching kids, and it’s never suggested the Jedi are trained by just one person, it’s not even a fanwank to say Obi-Wan was probably trained by more than one person.
I HATE the prequels, and even I see no problem here. I always kind of got the impression that his being with Qui-Gon Jinn was sort of like a field apprenticeship after years of in-house training.
Do or do not, there is no try.
Prospero is the first one to come to mind.
Yeah, that makes sense. The Jedi with the most developed skill in a particular field may help out anyone who asked, all on an informal and as needed basis. A brotherhood of monks.
So… what was Qui Gon’s talent, based on what is seen in Episode I?
An easygoing attitude in the face of preposterous things (“There’s always a bigger fish”).
I think everybody is leaving out the most essential step of the plan:
- Do NOT tell C3PO anything but what you absolutely must to get him to do what you want. Certainly not the truth.
Luke: “C3PO, I want you and R2 to go to Tatooine and take Jabba a message for me.”
C3PO: “You want me to go to Jabba’s lair? Are you sure that is safe?”
Luke: “Sure, it will be fine, you just have to translate for R2. They won’t do anything to you, you’re just a droid with a message. I’ll be along shortly afterwards. It will be much more impressive when I finally show up if I send you in to herald my coming.”
C3PO: “If you say so, Master Luke. Oh, I’m so frightened by it all, but after all, I am a droid, and you’ll come get me afterwards. Okay.”
Luke: <whispers to R2> "Remember, don’t tell 3PO about the plan. At all. Especially the part about the “gifts” to Jabba. He’ll just shit a transistor, and then we’ll have to work harder to smuggle you in with my lightsaber. Good R2.
R2: beep beeple bop beep boop, dinky dinky dow [I know, he’s such a crybaby. If you’d just get me my own Standard voice chip, we’d all be better off. sigh]
Here’s how I see his plan.
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see above.
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Put Lando in place as a mole. Have him in place for whatever the situation requires.
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Get Chewy into the prison (really only way to get Chewy available to help, because disguise for him would be a challenge), and Leia access to Han.
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Let Leia get Han out of carbonfreeze. If she can smuggle him out, gravy, but probably not. But it sure will be easier to rescue a mobile Han than a hunk of carbonite. Once he’s free, he’ll get stuffed into the prison with Chewy, right? That’s why Chewy has to be in the prison.
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Place R2 with the smuggled lightsaber into Jabba’s staff. Trust R2 to solve the lightsaber access problem, when needed. He’s totally capable - except when he mistakes a power port for data port, but that only happens when he’s under gunfire.
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Hope C3PO doesn’t make too big an ass of himself until I show up.
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Try playing big shot, so Jabba will respect me, and thus make a deal.
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Try Jedi Mind Trick - it might work, which will make things easier all around.
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If not, negotiate.
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If that doesn’t work, rely on timing and circumstance and let the Force guide me to solution.
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Oh crap, there’s a trapdoor and a Rancor. At least I have a Gamorrean Guard to distract him with.
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Damn, Leia looks good in that bikini! Too bad she’s my sister. Well, she doesn’t know she’s my sister… No, I’m a Jedi, bad thoughts!
I don’t think Luke knew about the Sarlaac or the pleasure barge ahead of time. I think he was relying on R2 to be an industrious and capable agent and get himself firmly situated in some labor capacity to be nearby when the shit went down.
The real question is how did Lando know the escape was going to happen at the Sarlaac pit, and not try to break them out sooner.
[middle of the night, Lando shows up at prison cell door]
Lando: [whispers] “Hey guys, I’m here and got the key. Just give me a second and we’ll have you out of there.”
Luke: “Wait, let’s not do this now, let’s wait until tomorrow. I’m sure there will be a better opportunity then.”
Lando: “You sure? It will just take me a second with this door, and then we can blast our way through Jabba’s fat carcass and be gone.”
Luke: “No, let’s do it my way. Don’t worry, it will work.”
Gamorrean Guard: “Urg urg oog ooga urg.” [Hey ugly, what you doin’ by that cell door? Aren’t you supposed to be guarding the wine cellar?] [triggers alarm]
Luke: “Now you’ve done it!”
Yeah, that was pretty cool. He just lays down confidence, despite looking like he’s in the biggest hole in the quadrant. He’s either an idiot, grossly overestimating his chances, or really is a badass.
Thanks for that. I couldn’t quite place the original.
Yeah, that just screams “I’M A PLANT, LOOK AT ME!” Fortunately, none of Jabba’s folks are looking at him. They’re too busy looking at the main show.
I think the assumption is that Lando was sending out secret messages to give Luke and company intel on what was going on. Except for C3PO. Nobody wanted him to know dick.
Well, after Qui-gon died, Obi-wan did sort of report to Yoda. Yeah, that was another one of those “I didn’t think of that when I wrote it” moments, that get’s explainable under the “Obi-wan’s version of the truth is sometimes a little less precise than most.”
Your post was great, thank you, and made me laugh to boot. 
There’s a reason why Senator Organa ordered Threepio’s memory wiped, but didn’t bother with Artoo.
This post, like so many of them in this thread, was awesome. 
But I must geekpick point #12:
Don’t forget, Luke didn’t know Leia was his sister at this point in RotJ – meaning all those bad thoughts were kosher. So, perv away, young Luke! Later you’ll just need to do a mind wipe on yourself.
I don’t think there was much of a plan, so much as their was a goal in mind. Luke is a much more mature Jedi at this point. Jedi’s don’t need careful plans much.
Taking on Jabba really wasn’t much more than morning exercise, to a Jedi. The end was never in doubt. There were probably about 1,000 different things Luke could have done to whoop ass. The method he ended up using is what we saw, but that hardly means what we saw was the only way Luke could have resolved the situation.
I lurves me some Star Wars, but threads like this always make my head spin at the sheer amount of information that’s been written/created about the SW Universe. That said, the main thing that always bothered me about the beginning of *ROTJ *was Luke Force-choking the Gamorrean guards (pig-like humanoids) as he’s walking into Jabba’s palace. I don’t know much about the Extended Universe, but the Gamorreans are portrayed in the movies as fairly stupid. Obviously smart enough to follow orders, but certainly dumb enough to fall for the Jedi mind trick. They don’t even talk or have emotions of their own, as far as I know. So has it ever been explained why Luke chose to choke them out rather than talk them down? Granted, we never see that he killed them with the Force choke, but they apparently didn’t get up and chase after the guy that just choked them once he walked by, so it’s probably safe to assume that they were incapacitated in some way.
That’s actually a good question.
See the storytelling intent is to relay really quickly to the audience that Luke has grown as a Jedi, and can do more of the things Vader does.
But in story, it doesn’t work well, because it violates the rule of Jedi - don’t use the Force for agression, only defense. Choking out a stupid guard is a bit overkill. From an in-story perspective, the Jedi Mind trick would have been better.
Maybe he just choked them unconscious, and needed to do so to create that quick reputation for power I mentioned above. He wants Jabba to see things he can do, like choke out a guard or two, to create an instant reputation, since otherwise he’s a Joe Schmo.
Personally, I wonder why he didn’t do something similar to the Rancor. My first thought would not be to shove a bone in the thing’s mouth, it would be to focus and cause an aortic anuerism. But maybe that would start me down the Dark path. 
So instead, he throws a rock. Throws it. He doesn’t even use the force to pitch it, he uses his arm. What kind of a Jedi is that? I know, someone will argue he must have used the force to help guide the rock to the button, but we didn’t see him do that “intense concentration” thing we usually see him do with the Force, like when showing off to the Ewoks.
How does a Jedi mind-wipe themself? I’ve forgotten that part of my studies.
1.) George has confirmed that he only knocked them out.
2.) Gamorreans, while capable of understanding other languages, can only speak their own (this is canon). So unless Luke speaks Gamorrean he isn’t going to be able to understand anything they’re saying. And if all they understand besides Gamorrean is Huttese, the international gangster language spoken by their boss, they won’t be able to make heads nor tails of what Luke’s saying, neither. Add that on top of the fact that they’re sort of advancing on Luke it makes a bit more sense that he’d just knock them out and be done with it.
Yes, the fanwank is strong with me.
Come on the whole rescue was like som A-Team plot line.
All that was missing was… “I love it when a plan comes together”