han solo
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (deleted scene)
Seriously though, this scene. WHY DID THEY DELETE THIS SCENE?
jcatgrl:
ugh, like there is LITERALLY no canonical evidence for the ~han solo: space womanizer~ head canon. like, when he first meets the ONE female character in the entire series that he interacts with he is GROUCHY and SHOUTY at her, not sauve and dashing. she thinks he is a tool and tells him this multiple times. not really smooth and charming.
he then takes to following her around on Hoth and practically pulling her pigtails asking ” DO YOU LIKE ME? YES/NO? (PLS SAY YES)” with hearts in his eyes. (Chewie probably had to throw out like a HALF DOZEN old notebooks that were filled with awful power ballads/poetry/odes to her and “Mr. Han Organa” written in different fonts)
when it comes to the iconic ‘i know’ in response to Leia’s proclamation of love, Ford has stated that it’s out of PURE CONCERN for HER FEELINGS (“the point is that I’m not worried about myself anymore, I’m worried about her” – DIRECT QUOTE), it was NOT a ‘boss’ move or ‘so swagtastic it hurts’ it was an apology that he couldn’t be there for her, it was an attempt to make her smile, to make it hurt less than if he had said the words too and then was forced to leave her. (not that he would have been much help; remember that han solo spends the majority of the 3rd film mostly blind and feeble, unable to take care of himself and generally getting in the way while Leia Gets Shit Done)
when he does say the words, it’s with the most adoring and awestruck expression. those words are fused with more than just love and respect. he’s almost HONOURED that he gets to love this badass babe and that she allows him to exist in her orbit.
AND THEN he loves Leia so much that he’s willing to step aside so she can be happy with the man he believes she wants. and valuing a woman’s choices and feelings over your own is not exactly womanizing behaviour – so where did this headcanon come from??
#THANK BABY JESUS FOR THIS POST#i am so fucking sick of nerd dudes taking every admirable or cool male character and saying#HE MUST BE DROWNING IN LADIES#SO SMOOTH#RICO SUAVE#TOO COOL TO CARE ABOUT LADY FEELINGS#like literally fuck all the way off#these characters are canonically awesome and cool and smart and heroic#AND SWEETHEARTS TO THE WOMEN THEY FALL FOR#lookin @ u jim kirk#lookin @ u john sheppard#staring directly into ur eyes han solo
My favorite part of this echo is the completely different meanings attributed to each exchange, like, people characterize Han Solo’s “I know” as him being ~cool~ but dang, no, I’m sorry you didn’t actually watch the film, but the emotional context for his saying “I know” is that this is the first time Leia—who has refused to express or even acknowledge the exact nature of her feelings for Han even after they get together—has told him she loves him, and Han is about to be literally frozen in carbonite, which, as they’re informed, is experimental and might result in his death, and even if he doesn’t die, he’s still being shipped to a nigh impenetrable fortress, so that Leia should tell him now—he can’t tell her he loves her, he can’t do it, because either way this carbonite thing goes, as he sees it, he’s dead, and the emotion is just too much; he has to throw up shields or else he’ll just straight up lose it and he’ll lose this one last moment with Leia with it.
And the echo in Return of the Jedi in which their positions are reversed has a very different context, but it’s also notable because it is Leia being cool. Yeah, Han loves her! She knows, and she knows why he first fell for her: because even if the odds are stacked against them, she’s still in charge. She’ll break into Jabba’s palace to save him, making her way past guards, conning the whole villainous lot of them. She’ll stone cold murder this dick who tries to enslave her. When Stormtroopers have her and her allies surrounded, she’ll shoot those assholes down. Of course Han loves her; she never doubted it. And Han is just overwhelmed with his love for her! Because damn, y’all, HE ALMOST DIED. AND SHE CAME TO RESCUE HIM. SHE FREED HIM FROM THE CARBONITE. SHE ISN’T LETTING HIS PUNK ASS ROT, AND SHE ISN’T LETTING SOME IMPERIAL DOUCHEBAGS SHOOT HIM UP.
~*~romance~*~
