Michael Wong Star Wars Fan Wank

[Kaelik]

which completely sinks your position that Han Solo's line wasn't obvious misinformation

Hey dumbfuck, that would totally (maybe) sink my position if that were actually my position, but since what I said was, "you are still an idiot for using it to argue that Han is dumb as shit."

It obviously isn't my position that Han wasn't lying. Since the entire point was that if he was lying, he would have used real measurements for the universe.

Do you think George Lucas (or whomever wrote that line) wrote that Han was lying, or that he was speaking gibberish. Hint, your own position that it specifically says he was lying, which means not gibberish, because those are different things.

[Chamomile]

No, your stated position is:

And if Han were lying, he would lie in the right measurement,

Except he didn't use the right measurement, which is why it was obvious misinformation and not a lie that Ben had to use force powers to pick up on.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I don't know about you, but where I hang out when I'm not at college, real people often use the wrong units for things when they don't have a number. Often, the unit is distance, e.g., "Halo's graphics are miles better than Doom's!" or, "I came within an millimeter of failing that test!"

[John Magnum]

Kaelik's position is pretty fucking simple, and obviously correct.

The claim is that "Han is lying, that's why he said parsecs and not a measure of time" is nonsense. If Han were just lying, then he would lie in the correct units. When Paul Ryan lied and said he ran a ridiculously fast marathon, he didn't lie by saying he ran a marathon in less than twenty miles.

What's very probable is that the writers meant for Han to be lying and using a unit of time for the purpose of his lie, but fucked up and used a unit of distance instead. Hence the convoluted "but actually the path is a variable distance" asspull and the "Han is so fucking stupid he doesn't know the difference between time and distance" theories.

[Chamomile]

If Han were just lying, then he would lie in the correct units.

And if Darth Vader were looking for his son, he'd probably take less than nineteen years to check his only living relatives house. And the Death Star is apparently capable of moving from one star system to another within a few days at most, so it should've been able to get Yavin 4 within targeting distance within seconds of arriving in the system. And Luke's Jedi training either lasted two or three days tops or else Han and company were stranded in deep space for months without food. So what?

[Kaelik]

No, your stated position is:

And if Han were lying, he would lie in the right measurement,

Except he didn't use the right measurement, which is why it was obvious misinformation and not a lie that Ben had to use force powers to pick up on.

Um... what. Do you know what misinformation is? I ask because the answer is obviously no.

Misinformation is incorrect information. Now, either you think that he was lying about how good he was, in which case he was lying, and you have to actually address my statement, or you think he is a complete idiot who does not know what measurements people use for ship speed, even though he flies a ship (your actual position).

But, this position, IE, dumb as a box of rocks, is in no way supported by the statement that it is misinformation. Because Han Solo by definition cannot be mistaken about whether he has personally run the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs (what he actually said), because it is a factual statement about things he has or has not done. He cannot be so dumb as to not know if he did in fact do the run. Since he knows he didn't do the run, he is in fact lying, regardless of whether or not he knows measurement, so "misinformation" applies to his lie, and there is no reason to claim that the existence of the word "misinformation" is supposed to indicate special double misinformation, where he lies, but is also mistaken in his lie.

And of course, special shooting script from your own source specifically says "Han's line is followed by a note stating that he is 'obviously lying.'"

So according to your own source, he is in fact lying. So you once again have to address the Paul Ryan scenario of running the Marathon in less than 30 feet.

[John Magnum]

If Han were just lying, then he would lie in the correct units.

And if Darth Vader were looking for his son, he'd probably take less than nineteen years to check his only living relatives house. And the Death Star is apparently capable of moving from one star system to another within a few days at most, so it should've been able to get Yavin 4 within targeting distance within seconds of arriving in the system. And Luke's Jedi training either lasted two or three days tops or else Han and company were stranded in deep space for months without food. So what?

So accept that this is yet another "The writers fucked up" moment, and stop trying to come up with convoluted reasons why it totally makes sense and could have been intentional for Han to use a unit of distance.

[Kaelik]

If Han were just lying, then he would lie in the correct units.

And if Darth Vader were looking for his son, he'd probably take less than nineteen years to check his only living relatives house. And the Death Star is apparently capable of moving from one star system to another within a few days at most, so it should've been able to get Yavin 4 within targeting distance within seconds of arriving in the system. And Luke's Jedi training either lasted two or three days tops or else Han and company were stranded in deep space for months without food. So what?

1) He was told that his kids fucking died. He had no reason to believe otherwise.

2) There is almost certainly no good explanation for this aside from narrative convenience, except that the way you say that, it makes it sound like you think hyperspace and subspace are the same thing, which makes you sound retarded.

3) Yeah, because people fleeing a base with everything they can carry on the way to a rendevous place days or months away on board a cargo ship never bring food enough to feed two people and a wookie for months! Especially not when two of those people live on that ship for their entire lives with no other home as it travels through space and sometimes breaks down far away from planets.

EDIT: But I do think it is funny that you are using "writers make mistakes" to justify your position that it is impossible that writers make mistakes.

[Chamomile]

So accept that this is yet another "The writers fucked up" moment, and stop trying to come up with convoluted reasons why it totally makes sense and could have been intentional for Han to use a unit of distance.

...I'm not. Han used what is objectively a nonsensical lie to tell to try and fool people, which is completely in keeping with George Lucas' absurd and terrible dialogue. There's a Mark Hamill interview where he's pretty explicit about how the George Lucas lines were basically impossible to act, so he dumped nuanced motivation, turned "farmboy sincerity" up to eleven, and rolled with it. That George would convince himself that using the wrong unit is a believable tell for a liar is entirely in keeping with what we know of the man's writing ability.

[Parthenon]

There's a Mark Hamill interview where he's pretty explicit about how the George Lucas lines were basically impossible to act, so he dumped nuanced motivation, turned "farmboy sincerity" up to eleven, and rolled with it.

Mark Hamill is the best.

---

Anyway, can someone remind me why this is in IMHO rather than MPSIMS? Because I have no idea.

[fbmf]

Kaelik's position is pretty fucking simple, and obviously correct.

The claim is that "Han is lying, that's why he said parsecs and not a measure of time" is nonsense. If Han were just lying, then he would lie in the correct units. When Paul Ryan lied and said he ran a ridiculously fast marathon, he didn't lie by saying he ran a marathon in less than twenty miles.

What's very probable is that the writers meant for Han to be lying and using a unit of time for the purpose of his lie, but fucked up and used a unit of distance instead. Hence the convoluted "but actually the path is a variable distance" asspull and the "Han is so fucking stupid he doesn't know the difference between time and distance" theories.

I've always interpreted Han's line as the equivalent of saying, "It's the ship that never runs out of blinker fluid."

He's intentionally lying (and using techo-jargon-esque terminology) to make himself sound good to the rustics. Chewbacca had pre-screnned them and so Han knew they (the rustics) were in a desperate situation.

Game On,
fbmf

[nockermensch]

(...) or how parsecs is used as a measurement of time instead of distance?

I actually know the answer to this one, I haven't seen the movies, so I've been catching up with darths & droids. And they talk about it here:
http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0767.html
So the reason is: Han Solo is a moron.

My understanding of that scene was always that Han was fast-talking some techno bullshit to impress a hillbilly customer. It was a Bluff check.

Now, SW also has sound in space and jedis. I don't know how people can seriously defend it on its scientific merits. It's clearly fantasy barely dressed with technologic props.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

My impression was always that "This ship made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs" was supposed to be a boast and was probably exaggerated, but wasn't supposed to be a lie, the whole "12 parsecs" thing was supposed to make sense in some sort of context the movie writers weren't going to provide because it's not important so move along, and that Han Solo was at least a moderately competent smuggler who got screwed by bad luck and poor decisions.

The take away from this, I think, is not that Han Solo is an incompetent idiot, but that George Lucas is an incompetent idiot, at least when he tries to write actual stories.

[hyzmarca]

One of the manuals is Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections

I think I have that book, or one of them, it's a fucking kids book. It's like using a colouring book as a citation in an essay.

It's appropriate, since Star Wars is a children's movie.

[nockermensch]

One of the manuals is Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections

I think I have that book, or one of them, it's a fucking kids book. It's like using a colouring book as a citation in an essay.

It's appropriate, since Star Wars is a children's movie.

It's a romantic movie.

[DSMatticus]

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.

So, Kaelik's position is that Han Solo is lying, but he wouldn't lie stupidly. Meanwhile, the script explicitly says that Han Solo's lie is definitely stupid. Moral of the story: George Lucas may or may not be a dumbass, but Kaelik definitely is.

[Leress]

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-A-New-Hope.html

Well here is the script and it does say:

HAN
It's the ship that made the Kessel
run in less than twelve parsecs!

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with
obvious misinformation.

[Kaelik]

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.

So, Kaelik's position is that Han Solo is lying, but he wouldn't lie stupidly. Meanwhile, the script explicitly says that Han Solo's lie is definitely stupid. Moral of the story: George Lucas may or may not be a dumbass, but Kaelik definitely is.

It is stupid to lie. That doesn't mean that the lie itself was stupid.

That would be: "Ben reacts to Solo's attempt to impress them with obviously stupid misinformation."

There is a difference between describing an action as stupid and describing later noun as stupid.

[Stubbazubba]

You're not seriously looking at word choice and imagining an intentional grammatical choice just to try and claim a phantom victory here, are you Kaelik? It would be poor writing to use the adjective 'stupid' twice in that one sentence, so he said obvious. An obvious lie is a kind of stupid lie, wouldn't you say?

[sabs]

Obvious to OB1 or to Luke.
It's clear that he expects the lie to succeed. Han isn't actually dumb.
He just doesn't know that OB1 is actually a Jedi, Master Pilot, General, and all around renaissance man. Who isn't going to be fooled. But Luke clearly doesn't catch it. Since he's quick to whine about how good a pilot he is, and how they could buy a ship for that much money. If the lie was really that obvious, whiny mcwhiny the wunderkin would have called Han on it.

[John Magnum]

An obvious lie is a kind of stupid lie, wouldn't you say?

This is such fucking stupid equivocation that I am forced to conclude that you, yourself, are as dim as either Han Solo or George Lucas is purported to be.

[Kaelik]

You're not seriously looking at word choice and imagining an intentional grammatical choice just to try and claim a phantom victory here, are you Kaelik? It would be poor writing to use the adjective 'stupid' twice in that one sentence, so he said obvious. An obvious lie is a kind of stupid lie, wouldn't you say?

No, I'm claiming that team "I can derive from a single sentence that George Lucas must have meant for Han Solo to literally be the stupidest human being in the entire planet even though there is never any indication of that anywhere else in the character, because it is way more likely that George Lucas knows that parsecs is a measure of distance, but thinks that people lie about their profession in units that don't make sense than that a film director making a low budget sci fi thing just used a spacey sounding word without knowing what it was" is full of shit, and that when they point to something that is equally compatible with both positions and claim it is so obviously definitely only the first one, that they are fucking retarded.

[DSMatticus]

There is a difference between describing an action as stupid and describing later noun as stupid.

You're not saying it very well at fucking all, but what you actually appear to be arguing is that stupid is an ambiguous word; it can either mean "wrong, nonsensical, incoherent," or "ill-reasoned, relating to a stupid decision." And that is totally true. And that leaves us two options:
1) Han Solo's attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation was nonsensical or incoherent, or
2) Han Solo's attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation was ill-reasoned or related to a nonsensical/incoherent decision.

What you're actually arguing is that George Lucas meant Han Solo's decision to lie was stupid (or ill-reasoned; it was a bad decision), not that the lie itself was nonsensical. So; why was Han Solo a dumbass for bragging (falsely) to a bunch of apparently uneducated rubes so they would pay him money for a service? Was he supposed to know that Obi-Wan was more educated than he actually was, and would call bullshit on him running the Kessel Run that 'fast?' Since you're asserting that the lie itself was not stupid, why was the decision to lie stupid?

"I can derive from a single sentence that George Lucas must have meant for Han Solo to literally be the stupidest human being in the entire planet even though there is never any indication of that anywhere else in the character, because it is way more likely that George Lucas knows that parsecs is a measure of distance, but thinks that people lie about their profession in units that don't make sense than that a film director making a low budget sci fi thing just used a spacey sounding word without knowing what it was"

You know what's fucking hilarious about this post? You're arguing that the idea that George Lucas would write terrible, nonsensical dialogue is so farfetched that he obviously must have been wrong about what a parsec was. And you know what? Challenge fucking accepted. Let's look at George Lucas's track record. You name an example of George Lucas using the wrong measurement, and I will name an example of George Lucas writing a terrible line of dialogue. When you run out of George Lucas fucking up units and I'm not even through episode IV, I'll name one more, and then we just let probability do the rest; George Lucas's fuck ups are more likely to be dialogue fuck ups than unit fuck ups, ergo any ambiguous fuck up is more likely to be of dialogue than of units.

(Yes, I am just going to read the Episode IV script to you line by line, because it will be both funny and true.)

[Whatever]

George Lucas's fuck ups are more likely to be dialogue fuck ups than unit fuck ups, ergo any ambiguous fuck up is more likely to be of dialogue than of units.

That's not how probability works.

[Red_Rob]

I call bullshit on the suggestion the line was "obviously" supposed to be Han getting the units wrong and making an ass of himself for two reasons. Firstly, if this was the case why does no-one draw attention to it? What purpose does the line serve if the audience doesn't get the reference? Parsecs being a unit of space measurement was definitely not common knowledge when Star Wars was released, so if the "joke" was supposed to be Obi Wan knowing this why does noone mention it in the film? Because George Lucas believed the audience to his family film would understand astronomy technical jargon based jokes? The rest of the script isn't exactly famed for being subtle.

Secondly, the Kessel Run was later retconned to actually be measured in parsecs rather than time. Why would this be done if George had meant it as a jokey mistake all along?

Han intentionally saying nonsense statements that will mean nothing to those who are ignorant of starships but will expose him as a fraud and a fool to anyone with a passing knowledge of space travel doesn't seem to fit with the rest of his character. He's a chancer and a risk-taker, not an idiot. I mean, he cold bloodedly kills a guy a few moments later! Even George isn't that sloppy in his characterisations...