What Was Luke's Plan in 'Return of the Jedi'?
This was a piece that published on February 28, 2018 when I worked at Uproxx. I would just link to it, but Uproxx has removed its archives before 2022, so this piece has been lost to the internet. But, today, I am here to save it.
The funny thing about this particular piece is I'm fairly certain it's the most read thing I've ever written. Actually that's probably not true. In 2010 I worked for Yahoo! writing newsy front page stories and, especially back then, once something was on the front page of Yahoo, it was seen by literally millions. So let me rephrase: I'm fairly certain this is the most read piece I've ever written that at least some people remember. People still bring this up to me when I run into them socially. Now, before we get to the actual original piece, I have two amusing stories about this.
I was visiting St. Louis in 2018 shortly after my father's death.* I was in an Uber and the driver was making small talk. Out of nowhere he asked if I liked Star Wars and that he just read "an interesting article" about how Luke's plan makes no sense. Feeling good about myself I wasted no time telling this driver that I wrote that piece. He either did not hear me or did not believe me, then continued to explain to me an article that I wrote.
*This was also the trip back to St. Louis in which I was informed that I have an older brother I never knew existed. And also that we have the same first name. I realize I'm burying the lede here, but I promise I will finally tell this story in its entirety at some point on The Hard Pass. This will require a lot of words since it's the most impactful thing that's ever happened to me in my life and completely re-framed my entire existence. Having said all that, let's get back to Luke's plan in Return of the Jedi.
A couple years ago Sony asked if I'd write the essay for the 4K release of John Carpenter's Starman for one of their terrific Columbia Classics sets. The only catch was that John Carpenter had to approve me and he was requesting writing samples. What to send became a very intense internal debate. A friend joked that I should send Luke's Plan because the idea of John Carpenter reading this seemed amusing. After some more internal back and forth, I decided Luke's Plan was kind of a quintessential example of my actual writing. I could send something that, perhaps, read a little more "smart," but if I got turned down I'd regret it. If I sent Luke's Plan and got turned down, well then I just wasn't the right person for this assignment in the first place. So I sent a link to Luke's Plan to John Carpenter (which, again, isn't possible today, which is disheartening). Thirty minutes later I get an email from Sony that John Carpenter had approved me to write the Starman essay. Anyway, here's what John Carpenter read as it appeared in 2018:
We Dare You To Explain Luke’s Plan To Rescue Han In ‘Return of the Jedi’
Earlier this week, I was hanging out a local New York City neighborhood pub with a couple of friends and the bar started playing Return of the Jedi on one of its televisions, as this bar often does. Now, The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite movie of all time (and, this may come as a shock, my favorite Star Wars movie, too) but I may be more fascinated by Return of the Jedi, and not in a good way. It’s a movie where a lot of character decisions make almost no sense. (We’ve already been down the road that the Empire had many chances to kill the Rebels in this movie and just decided not to for some reason.) But, on this night earlier in the week, a question was asked that at the same time put everything about this movie in perspective and no one could properly answer. That question is:
If Luke’s plan to rescue Han from Jabba had worked perfectly, what would that plan have been?
