What exactly was Luke's plan for rescuing Han Solo?

Just finished a saga marathon with friends, one trilogy per day. Great times, yet while Episode VI was as awful as I remembered (seriously, don't watch EMPIRE and JEDI back to back, it's like following up CITY LIGHTS with WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S) I only now realize how daffy the Rebels' plan was for springing Han Solo. Let's go through it:

1. Lando is installed as the inside man.
2. The droids surrender to Jabba, as per Luke's orders.
3. Leia arrives incognito, delivers up Chewbacca.
4. Leia sneaks in late at night and releases Han, declaring "we've gotta get outta here!" (What about Chewie...and the droids?) Unsurprisingly, they are both captured, seeing as how dozens of guards are dozing around them. Han's put in the dungeon; Leia becomes a sex slave.
5. Luke arrives, demands only Han and Chewie(?!?!), gets arrested, and is thrown to the rancor.
6. Luke miraculously survives and is taken to the sarlaac pit with the others. Apparently, this was all by design, if the well-placed lightsaber within Artoo is any indication.

Can someone help me connect the dots, here? Or do George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan get top prize for most-convoluted-rescue-mission-in-the-history-of-film?

she's just lucky he showed up before getting some Hutt in the Butt

:spray:

:rofl: Oh, dear. :D

OMG!!!

Thanks for the laff!

But no one ever listens to my theories.

Oi, he didn't bother to speak English, so nah nah nyah-nyah nah! :P :rofl:

:shrug:

There were discrepancies?

while the theme to Metal Gear played in the background. When that didn't work, he went with plan B.

the best Star Wars theory I've ever read posits that R2D2 and Chewie aren't just mere sidekicks, but two of the best agents that the Alliance has:

...Consider: at the end of RotS, Bail Organan orders 3PO's memory wiped but not R2's. He wouldn't make the distinction casually. Both droids know that Yoda and Obi-Wan are alive and are plotting sedition with the Senator from Alderaan. They know that Amidala survived long enough to have twins and could easily deduce where they went. However, R2 must make an impassioned speech to the effect that he is far more use to them with his mind intact: he has observed Palpatine and Anakin at close quarters for many years, knows much that is useful and is one of the galaxy's top experts at hacking into other people's systems. Also he can lie through his teeth with a straight face. Organa, in immediate need of espionage resources, agrees...

...20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet. He's there in the tactical conferences and there on the front lines and is a personal friend of Yoda's. When he needed reliable people to join the embryonic Alliance, who else would Yoda turn to but his old friend from Kashykk? Given his background, there is no way that Chewie would spend the crucial years of the rebellion as the second-in-command to (sorry Han) a low-level smuggler. Unless it's his cover. In fact, Chewie is a top-line spy and flies what is in many ways the Rebellion's best ship...

http://www.morningstar.nildram.co.uk/A_New_Sith.html

Keith Martin is the Oliver Stone of SW fandom. His theory's almost plausible, moreso than my wacky ideas, like how Qui-Gon and Padme constitute the godhead of the original trilogy or my '02 suspicion that Count Dooku would form the Rebel Alliance.

So many hours wasted.

i think it hoLds water.

easily abandon the alliance with Han when they were preparing their big assault on the death star. If Chewbacca really had at one time been a kick ass fighter for the Republic who saw his home world conquered by the Empire, I would think he would jump at the chance for some payback rather than simply scraping out a meager living on the run as a smuggler's sidekick. After all, aren't Wookie's known for tearing arms out of their sockets when they lose? Chewbacca would love nothing better than to go toe to toe with the death star.

Your theory however, explains this. And perhaps it was due to Chewbacca's influence that Han decided to turn the Falcon around and join the fray after all.

Although throughout the series he does tend to be a moral compass for Han. Which is ironic, since it was an act of morality on Han's part that caused Chewie to give Han a life-debt.

Lando was there to purposely destroy or sabatage the right droids so that when R2 and Threepio showed up, they'd be put in the right positions to be of use.
Not sure about Leia's part in all of it though.

I saw Jedi so many times before I even figured out how great the first two were.
Last time I watched Jedi I knew it was silly when they're all winking at each other over the sarlaac pit.. but 25 years ago I just did not care lol

Luke was far too important to be used to risk rescuing smuggler like Han Solo.

However, things didn't work out according to plan, so Luke went after his friends (again). At the very least it illustrates one of the most important themes of the OT: the importance of friendship.

Also, we really don't know about Chewie and the droids. Perhaps there WAS a plan in place to rescue them as well, but we never got to that, because Jabba interrupted.

And how DARE the spell checker not recognize the word "Jabba!"