Swank’s Star Wars Update

By Bryan Young on January 13, 2010 in News Star Wars

As some of you may know, I’m also the Star Wars Examiner for the national website of the San Francisco Examiner.

And as the Star Wars Examiner, I cover every little bit of Star Wars news I can find and I don’t always post it here on Big Shiny Robot! I’m hoping to get better at that and will begin doing these little round-ups every week (or now and again) that collect all of the stories that I haven’t posted up here but that are important to Star Wars fans. So, click the links, read the stories and enjoy.

Han Solo should have died in Return of the Jedi

Harrison Ford has been on the record saying that he would never reprise his role as Han Solo again repeatedly, so I’m not exactly sure why it has been reported as brand new news by MTV, but Harrison Ford has gone on the record again by saying he’d never play Han Solo again.

I don’t think we’ll ever see Episode 7, 8 and 9 out of the George Lucas camp, so this news feels like it’s a moot point as well.

But lets take this bit of news as a teachable moment here.

I think the story of Return of the Jedi would have been better served by Han Solo dying at the end.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Return of the Jedi and I think that it’s a perfect film the way it is.  But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things I can’t wish would have been done better.  (As a matter of fact, I think there are things that could have been done better about the prequels, too, but that doesn’t lessen how much I love them and how amazing I think they are.)

Harrison Ford begged and begged and begged to have Han be killed at the end of Return of the Jedi and I think he was right.  Perhaps his goal was to make sure that he’d never have to come back as everyone’s favorite devil-may-care smuggler (though a case could be made for Rhett Butler and Mal Reynolds to fit that title), but I think it makes a lot of sense for the story.  The rebels really didn’t have to sacrifice anything but Ewoks in order to defeat the Empire in the final installment of the classic trilogy.

Victories are always more valued when they’re hard fought and won with the blood of heroes.  Though it’s been said that early drafts of Lawrence Kasdan’s screenplay Lando Calrissian was committed to a fiery grave in the Falcon in the belly of the second Death Star, I’m not sure that would have been enough to create the effect I’m talking about.  The Holy Trinity of main characters in Return of the Jedi don’t have to sacrifice anything.  Luke has to sacrifice his father, sure, but his father is only in about 4 minutes of the film.

I think the death of Han Solo would have punctuated the deadliness of the Empire in a way that would have rivaled the destruction of Alderaan.  The bad guys are always worse when they do horrible things to our favorite characters.  And what would have made us hate them more than killing the one hero who was the most reluctant?

Luke wanted to get into the adventure and tried at every chance he could to get into the fray.  Leia was raised to do what she had to.  Han Solo was out for himself and became a hero despite his better judgement, him willingly paying the ultimate price for a cause he finally believed in would have been a character and story arc that would have added so much to the ending.  Sure, it would have been bittersweet, but I think would have been a stronger story.

It also would have killed the Expanded Universe as we know it.  And in a lot of ways, would that really be a bad thing?

I kid.  I love a lot of the EU, but I’d still like to have seen this as an alternate ending to Return of the Jedi.

What do you guys think?