Force-a-rama

Aww, thanks! 💜

I love Han and Leia and I will be bitter about how things went down for them in the Sequel Trilogy for the rest of time EVEN IF EPISODE 9 IS AMAZING AND INCLUDES A PALPATINE MUSICAL NUMBER AND AN OBIKIN FORCE GHOST DIP-KISS, OK? Some things you just can’t take back, JJ. Hmmph. 

ANYWAYS. Han and Leia. They are a GODDAMN PAIN IN THE ASS, and I love them. I do not understand how anyone in the Rebellion could possibly have put up with them, and honestly I WAY understand why Luke just happened to constantly need to go off on his own little Jedi Knowledge Quests all the fucking time, because JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST I would be looking for an escape, too: 

This is them interacting in like, TWO COMICS. That cover like 93 minutes of their lives. 

Han being so incredibly oblivious near the end of Return of the Jedi is a highlight for me, too. I feel like he and Leia were probably buying a house or something, they were married, and Leia was pregnant, and Han still was like “…wait, OMG, I know I’ve joked about it a lot but do you really like like me?” (In his defense, I mean, Leia did tell him she hated him and literally kick his ass at one point, so. 😂) 

Also, this will never not be funny to me: 

Every single thing about these parts of these scenes is GOLD. EVERY PERSON’S FACE. 

Leia and Anakin: A N D ANOTHER THING 

Who carried the Death Star plans from Padme's daughter to Padme's son?

Who flew copilot on the mission to blow up said Death Star?

This guy.

The first step to being a Padawan isn’t convincing your potential Master to take you on, it’s getting them to fight you in the first place.

So imagine all those tiny Jedi throwing themselves at the Chosen One and Anakin just striding through like the tall bastard he is, ignoring the occasional flying tackle attempt and dancing aside from small fists without looking up from his latest speeder schematics. 

And imagine the traps they attempt to set, hoping to corner him into a confrontation - a tactic that would actually be quite effective, were it not for the fact that Anakin Skywalker was trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, and we all know their mutual stance on traps…

(Speaking of which, consider how many attempts there are after Anakin’s knighting to earn a place as Obi-Wan’s new Padawan - the poor man is constantly battling rugrats as well!) 

Snips wins her place through cunning and persistence. I’m thinking it involves her pretending to be after Obi-Wan as a Master, a carefully timed post mission encounter and a plate of cookies or something - while keeping up light conversation she makes sure to steal the last treat out of Anakin’s fingers prompting him to chase her and thus initiating a fight. Anakin and Obi-Wan will boast about this for YEARS. 

But anyway aside from cunning old Jedi who can evade like whoa, consider the second part of this whole ritual. The begging to be trained.

Consider the idea of a smol Anakin clearing his throat and humbling requesting Obi-Wan take him on as his Padawan learner and Obi-Wan being like “Yes! Of course!” and Anakin pouting and insisting it’s not fair if he doesn’t do this right! Obi-Wan needs to be persuaded like tradition says! He made an entire list of  arguments! So Obi-Wan has to sit there and hide his smile while he gives pro forma rejections for Anakin to rebut. 

The council are in need of medical assistance at this point due to excessive laughter.

But also consider the other partnership we haven’t looked at yet.

And he is an EXPERT at making those opportunities look natural. The food stealing fool technique we see him use with Luke is one of the most obvious plays in his repertoire and one he relishes as his reputation means he hasn’t been able to use since his second century! 

Other “simple” openings he has utilised in the past include inviting philosophical disagreement to the point of the initiate throwing the first punch, humming off pitch in a most repetitive manner for hours on end, and pretending to trip over his gimmer stick. 

But don’t be fooled. Yoda chooses his padawans carefully. He tailors his approach to give them the most incentive to want to prove their worth. The trap he set for Dooku involved injuring his self pride and insinuating that Dooku was too straightforward in his thinking, causing the boy to create a plan involving weeks of prep time, multiple changes to temple schedules and a bit of minor sabotage. Just to prove Yoda wrong.

Dooku is deeply unnerved by the muddy gremlin child (all children are gremlins, of course, but some at least strive for dignity). An expert duelist skilled in misdirection, Dooku becomes little more than a ghost anytime Qui-Gon is in the vicinity.

Six months pass, and while Qui-Gon doesn’t appear to be giving up, he also doesn’t appear to be very good at this. His strategy more or less seems to be charging full speed directly in Dooku’s direction anytime the man steps foot in the temple. Dooku thinks it should be simple enough to avoid the blundering initiate until he gives up or ages out. It’s easily done to take back-to-back missions in any case. He’s an hour from the temple, en route to one such assignment when he blacks out.

He wakes up in a moderately sized cell, well stocked with food, water, and Qui-Gon Fucking Jinn. 

They look at each other.

“You do realize that the temple is hardly going to approve of an apprenticeship begun with an initiate knowingly interfering with a Jedi mission”

“There is no mission,” Qui-Gon explains cheerfully. “I’ve had a friend in the Rodian system submit and withdraw a request for Jedi aid matching your skillset whenever you were in temple. No one will be expecting you to check in for weeks, and I’ve made sure we’re provisioned with everything we need.”

“….You’ve been luring me in to a false sense of complacency with your direct attempts. And by harassing me into taking back-to-back missions, you made my movements predictable. Impressive. How did you manage to slip around my guard long enough to drug me?”

“I’ll tell you if you beat me in a fight.”

“I see. And I imagine if I ask you for the keycode to get out of this cell, your reply would be much the same.”

All I've seen until your post was hate for this movie, and I absolutely LOVE TCW, so this gives me a lot of hope! Star Wars is a series that shouldn't be taken too seriously, the plot of the first movie is genuinely the funniest thing!

Oh that surprises me not at all.

I no longer pay attention to ANYTHING men of certain ages/situations have to say about Star Wars, because they've frankly been incredibly wrong about ALL of what Star Wars is or ever was trying to be for most of my entire life. I'm super sure their collective steadfast beliefs in their own correctness about everything has led us directly to where we all are in Real Life, and I also know they'll never acknowledge nor feel bad about it. We MADE them vote the way they voted, whether it was for some of the worst human beings on earth just to show us who's boss or for perennial candidates that had ZERO chance of ever getting elected, you see. It's actually *our* fault.

Anyone who thinks Star Wars is meant to be 100% Deep Serious Dark Content should die of embarrassment on the spot. The idea that anybody could watch even just A New Hope and think it's this Highbrow Bullshit is HILARIOUS to me.

…and how Vader had to watch the Empire gradually paint over it everywhere and OH GOOD BECAUSE VADER IS SO MAD AT AND HATES THAT LOSER WHO EVEN CARES VADER WILL PAINT OVER ALL OF THEM HIS DAMN SELF IF HE HAS TO.

Bob’s Burgers, Season 4, Episode 7: Bob and Deliver