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It's not such a terrible fit for Star Wars; in the first movie Luke was a
dirtwater farmer, and the only rich person outside the Imperial hierarchy we saw (or didn't see, Special Edition be damned) was crimelord Jabba the Hut. The next rich person we see is an Imperial collaborator (Lando), though he is later partially redeemed.Correct, that would be Larry Ellison (though I don't know about the architectural abomination part).
It's a terrible fit for Star Wars.
In Star Wars, the richest person is the Emperor who became rich by using a powerful government to take control of the galaxy and extract their resources violently via taxes. It is quite clearly illustrated in the movies that private sector institutions (Jabba's mafia, Jawa traders, Cloud City) are entirely subservient to the Empire. For example:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6_P1eWl77vo https://youtube.com/watch?v=q8irC6QMH9A
Johnson's "military industrial complex except pure capitalism ignore government" story doesn't fit this.
Lets consider the explicit historical parallels:
The Empire is drawn from Rome story wise and Tsarist Russia/Soviet Russia/Nazi Germany in terms of imagery/musical themes.
Lucas has also cited a real life American politician as inspiration for Palpatine. Said politician is famous for anti-Soviet rhetoric and left wing economic policies (wage/price controls, restricting "windfall" profits, rationing goods, wealth transfers).
The First Order is more explicitly Nazi in it's imagery.
How does one get Rian Johnson's story to remotely fit either the actual movies or any of the historical inspiration?
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Princess Leia?
By the time we see her, Princess Leia is a captured spy and has no obvious wealth, despite the title.
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??? I think it's pretty heavily implied that Princess Leia is rich, via such lines of dialogue as, "She's rich..."
Luke claims she's rich to interest Solo. But if she ever was (which seems likely), her wealth was blasted to atoms with Alderaan and would have been confiscated in any case.
He does end up getting paid, though.
She wrote him a check drawn against the First Bank Of Alderaan.
Kidding aside, Senator Leia Organa almost certainly had above-the-board digitally intragalactically available bank accounts on Coruscant and Alderaan, along with direct access to Mon Mothma and her Rebel Alliance money. Mon‘s people probably paid Han the bounty for returning Leia.
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My impression of Luke is that his background was middle class, rich enough to go for jaunts on speeders and to own droids. Being a farmer doesn't necessarily make you poor. Though the economics of Tattooine seem a little bizarre given that Shmi had her own cozy two bed terrace despite being a literal chattel slave.
Is a farmer rich if he owns a tractor? It would depend where on Earth you are siting the movie; a farmer in a Third World country probably is, but for a farmer in the developed world it's just normal machinery that is needed for doing the work.
Droids are everything from fancy units to basic machines, and used for labour. I don't know if they're at all regarded as "people" even though some of them are sentient, there seems to be no problem with owning, buying and selling them (then again, flesh-and-blood people can be owned, bought and sold). "Going for a jaunt on a speeder" seems to be the equivalent of "driving the truck into town to go to the movies/pub/hang out with my buddies".
Luke is a farm kid on a backwater planet, whatever his position in the local class hierarchy is, in wider terms of the Empire (certainly places like Coruscant) he's a shit-kicker.
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Its really hard to tell class from old movies...
Housing and shelter didn't used to be such scarce resources, it used to be something groundhogs could provide for themselves.
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If we frame Star Wars as mostly about plucky underdogs overcoming insurmountable odds, there's some congruence of message there.
I think the issue is that he had to go to the next level with that whole Canto Bight sequence and imply, straight up, that the only reason the First Order can prosecute a war is because it buys weapons from these war profiteers, who are explicitly only in it for money and thus wish to drag things out as long as possible. It's not enough for the First Order to just be an unambiguously bad force, there has to be some rich people 'behind the scenes' making money off their existence.
And as mentioned, Johnson makes them irredeemable, rather than as with Lando people with warped but extant moral compasses who might still do the 'right' thing.
And add onto the 'reality ensues' issue Johnson has: in that film, everything the protags did during that sequence will be reversed immediately.
Did Lando even have a warped moral compass? From his perspective:
Lando is currently a productive and contributing member of society who is also responsible for the lives and livelihood of his many employees. The Empire shows up immediately before an old criminal buddy is set to arrive. Vader tells him to cooperate in arresting one of the guys (not his buddy) or else they will conquer Cloud City (stick), but will otherwise leave him and all his people alone (Carrot). Vader lies to him about the fate of the others and does not reveal that Han will be given to Jabba.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=q8irC6QMH9A https://youtube.com/watch?v=6_P1eWl77vo
Here's what Lando does after he figures out Vader lied to him:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ojoz7qO8XP8
It's not clear to me what Lando should have done differently.
I don't think we even know that we know that Lando knew why the Empire was after Han, right? Like, the man was a common criminal, and the imperials might just be running a typically heavy-handed regular police operation. He obviously didn't find out about the whole "ritual torture to lure a guy for a magic duel" thing until later.
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If we look at the whole of his history then I'd say his compass doesn't point 'true north' in much the same way that Han's doesn't. Remember Han was gonna just abandon the Rebellion after completing his job, and probably only came back because he wanted to bang the Princess (and felt some guilt or something, I guess).
Hard to say. Resign his post so as not to be a 'Collaborator' and attempt to warn Han not to show up?
The fact that he has no reason to care about Luke is valid, but also not a complete excuse.
Maybe seek some additional, tangible assurances that the deal won't be altered rather than going with a handshake verbal agreement. Lando of all people should expect double crossing.
I'm not saying he shouldn't have taken Vader at his word, but is it fair to say that when the head of the Waffen SS shows up in your town demanding cooperation, you should maybe be a little bit less than fully compliant, and assume something sinister is afoot?
This also doesn't take away from Lando's heroism in the end, because he still did genuinely risk his life in an act of defiance.
Resign his post, get arrested, Han shows up and they get captured when their ship lands ("they showed up right before you did"). Vader loses his dramatic entrance but still accomplishes ihis mission.
Seek tangible assurances from a guy he has absolutely no leverage against? (A point illustrated by the second clip I linked.)
Near as I can tell, the best thing Lando can do is cooperate until he gets the opportunity to actually do something that might work.
This hinges on just how much Lando trusted Vader to keep his word.
It sure looks like Lando didn't choose to resist until it became clear he was going to get screwed either way.
If he warns Han not to show up Vader doesn't accomplish the mission.
I could go into a long discussion on the strategy of refusing to comply with 'evil' vs. going along until the best opportunity to defect arises.
But we wouldn't have much of a story if Lando took the former option, so in the context of the movie, I'm willing to concede the point.
Yeah a fair bit is contingent on stuff like "how feasible was it for Lando to send a message to Han" and "exactly how bad is it all of Lando's people if he resists" - all of which is off screen. (Near as I can tell the answer to the latter is "very bad" given Lando's warning that everyone needs to GTFO.)
But given Lando's later actions (rescue Han/blow up the death star instead of running off and continuing his career as a con man), I'd suggest he's probably a decent enough guy who was put into a tough situation where all choices involve the Empire harming someone.
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