As stated above, this is part 4 in my look at the second draft of Star Wars or as it was known then, the Adventure of the Starkiller.

PART 4: HAN SOLO. INTERGALACTIC HIJACKER

Scene 37-Scene 57

We start off when Luke is about to leave the Lars homestead. He receieves the Kiber Crystal in, what I think is, a Lord of the Rings like fashion, very ceremonial a.k.a "this is your task/mission/burden" kind of stuff. So what is so special with this Kiber Crystal? Well, I'll let Owen Lars explain:

Jedi can use it to intensify the Ashla force a hundred fold; but, remember can also be used to intensify the power of the Bogan...It must not fall into the hands of the Sith...They would do anything to have it.

So, in a sense it is like the Ring. People have been debating the influence Lord of the Rings have had over Star Wars. I myself haven't felt that it's been very obvious in Star Wars, but Lord of the Rings does seem to have a certain influence over the earlier versions of Star Wars.

In Part 1, I talked about the Bogan and Ashla and their powers. Well, there's a third Force, called the Force of Others. While both Bogan and Ashla represent evil/good, the Force of Others seems to be this general Force with no good or evil inherently in it. Just like the Force. It seems that you must know the Force of Others to get to know the Ashla or the Bogan. Judging by some quotes however it seems like the Force of Others favour the good guys most of the time.

Also, who's these Others? Because it sounds like this Force comes from someone special. Is it from the Whills? Who? Personally, I like the vague name The Force instead of the Force of Others. Also, it sounds much better saying May the Force be with you then May the Force of the Others be with you

Not much really happens until Luke enters the Cantina in Mos Eisley. Luke ask for passage to Ogana Major which arouses the Pirates (note: not a smuggler) suspicion. Han tells that Ogana Major is a Rebel held and then goes on to ask Luke

You wouldn't be one of those rebels, would yuh, little one?

Obviously, Solo doesn't want to have any dealings with the Alliance, at all. He denies Luke passage and acts like a scumbag. Lucas has taken this a step longer then he did in A New Hope, there we were initially led to believe that Han was a greedy scoundrel. Here he's just an arrogant scumbag.

Luke then gets, unwillingly, into a fight with an alien and a human. Solo shows a softer side and tries to intervene and gets thrown back like Luke did in A New Hope. Here it is Luke who cut them down with a saber, again showing another side then the Luke we know and there he wins Han's respect. Han also says that the Bogan is to blame for all this drunken problem, so he feels it too? Is everyone Force sensitive in the Starkiller universe?

Han agrees to take him to Ogana Major and invites him to eat some dinner and tell him more, so Luke recites all we already know. Somehow it feels strange that Luke confides such sensitive information with the Pirate, it's very reckless. It was better in A New Hope when there was "No questions asked". Now Han Solo has an idea what he's getting thrown into and again, some of the charm disappears. It was better when Han only thought that they were on their way to Alderaan.

We later find out that Han Solo has given Luke a promise he can't hold. He's not Captain of his ship (which hasn't got a name). He and Chewbacca are just crewmembers. Somehow, Han hasn't held to much esteem with the Captain of the ship, called Oxus and therefore he tries to convince his friend Montross to convince Oxus to take with Luke and the droids. Montross is an interesting character because he's half-cyborg, half-man. He himself says that the only real thing left of him is his right arm and his head. So he's more machine then man. What is interesting is that Lucas never states that Vader is made up of an machine parts so I assume that the concept of Montross was applied to Vader later on. Another interesting thing is that Montross only has his right arm is left. Well, both Luke and Anakin get their right arms chopped off (well, Anakin gets it all chopped off but to start with it's the right.) so there's a fun piece of trivia for ya.

Han tries to convince Oxus himself but fails because the Captain is too drunk. This is when a new side of his scoundrel/scumbag side shows up. He triggers some sort of alarm which makes everyone evacuate the ship, he then brings a surprised Luke onboard who saw the whole spectacle (and who thinks the ship is impressive, not a piece of junk). So Solo isn't just a scoundrel and a scumbag but he's also a common thief. But then again, he stole a ship from a Pirate so does that make it bad? Also, this opens the possibility of a bounty being put on Solo's head in coming episodes. Really, I'm not sure what drives Han here because he doesn't have a debt to pay off so he could just ignore Luke. It seemed more believeable in A New Hope when he had a debt to pay off and he was forced to accept any old job to get it