"The Millennium Falcon Deal" is the sixth episode of the Star Wars radio drama. It first aired on National Public Radio on Monday, April 6, 1981.[1] Paralleling the events of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, the episode takes place in Mos Eisley, mostly in the Spaceport Cantina, where Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker arrange the deal to take the Millennium Falcon to Alderaan. Outside in the streets of the city, C-3PO and R2-D2 try to avoid capture by imperial Stormtroopers.
Opening crawl[]
| Episode Six THE MILLENNIUM FALCON DEAL |
|---|
Plot summary[]
Ben explains how to survive in Mos Eisley.
Driving his landspeeder to Mos Eisley spaceport, Luke Skywalker grieves for his aunt and uncle. Ben Kenobi tells him that in the future his studies of the Force will give him mental disciplines that would be of help at this time; but for now, they must concentrate only on their mission: booking passage on a starship to Alderaan. Luke asks about the fate of the Princess Leia; Ben speculates that she is probably alive but facing capture and interrogation by the Empire.
At the outskirts of the city, both Luke and Ben are surprised at the heavy presence of imperial Stormtroopers. Ben uses the Force to influence a trooper to let them pass through a checkpoint. They drive to a seedy cantina near the docking bays in order to find a mercenary pilot who will be willing to take them off-world without asking any questions. At the cantina door, the bartender warns that the two droids are not welcome and will have to stay outside. Ben and Luke instruct them to wait with the speeder and come to the cantina door if they run into any trouble.
Inside, Ben approaches a man and asks if he is a Corellian spacer. He replies that he is, but he has just taken another charter and is not available for hire. However, another Corellian, Han Solo, is down on his luck and in need of work. He introduces Ben to Han's first mate Chewbacca. While Ben and Chewbacca begin to make arrangements, Luke gets in a scuffle with a pair of outlaws, Sawkee and Roofoo. They draw blasters on Luke, and Ben intervenes, killing one and slicing the arm off the other. He warns Luke that a lightsaber is a last resort.
Meanwhile, See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo are still outside the cantina. When stormtroopers come by the cantina door, they realize that they can neither stay where they are nor go get Luke and Ben; so they go off to hide. C-3PO bumps into an unidentified man who threatens to "take a wrench to you both." Next the pair hide in a nearby droid lot. The owner tells another group of troopers that he has no new droids on the lot. Then he sees Artoo and Threepio and kicks them off his property.
Han shoots Greedo.
Ben and Luke sit in a booth with Han Solo. Han boasts of his prowess as a pilot and the speed of his ship, the Millennium Falcon. They negotiate a price for the voyage: two thousand credits now, plus fifteen thousand more upon reaching Alderaan. Han readily agrees to this. Stormtroopers have now entered the cantina, so Ben and Luke sneak out the back door. Chewbacca also leaves to ready the ship's gear. Now alone, Han encounters Greedo, an alien thug working for Jabba the Hutt and his henchman Heater. Jabba is demanding that Han pay him for a load of smuggled spice that he dumped to avoid an imperial inspection. Greedo threatens Han, who then shoots and kills Greedo before leaving the cantina.
Continuity[]
Cantina creature later identified as one of the Tin-Tin Dwarves from "The Millennium Falcon Deal"
The episode adds a scene not in the film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope that shows the two droids outside the cantina trying to evade passing imperial stormtroopers. The following episode "The Han Solo Solution" continues this subplot.
A few individuals and species in the Mos Eisley Cantina are given names and personalities that would be contradicted by later Legends material. Luke refers to a "Meerian Hammerhead:" the hammerhead alien was later called an Ithorian, while the name Meerian was used for another species. He also mentions a "Stofo Lupinoid:" it is unclear which of the two wolflike cantina aliens this refers to, since they were later dubbed a Shistavanean and a Defel. The name Tin-Tin Dwarf was later connected to a rodent-like creature cut from the film but appearing interacting with Ackmena in a scene in The Star Wars Holiday Special. The 2001 Essential Guide to Alien Species gave this species the name Tintinna.[2]
Obi-Wan is introduced to Chewbacca through a character identified only as "a Corellian spacer." Their conversation had been shown briefly in the film, but no words were heard; in the radio episode, it serves as a source of exposition about Chewbacca, Solo, and the Millennium Falcon. In the 1995 short story "At the Crossroads: The Spacer's Tale," this character would be identified as BoShek and given a very different personality. In the story and later appearances of the character, BoShek is a Force-sensitive pilot whose ship has recently crashed. In the exchange with Obi-Wan, each man recognizes the Force abilities of the other, and Obi-Wan urges BoShek to hold on to the Light Side.[3] The radio episode gives no hint of any of this and portrays the spacer as a boastful pilot who turns down Obi-Wan because he already has a charter with someone else.
In the standoff with outlaws in the cantina, the radio episiode follows the Star Wars novelization more closely than the film. Obi-Wan attacks both assailants, cutting off the arm of Sawkee and slicing Roofoo in half. The film only shows the first, non-lethal, attack. Both characters would also be given different names - Ponda Baba and Doctor Cornelius Evazan - in the 1991 roleplaying sourcebook Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope. The names Roofoo and Sawkee would later be revealed to be among the pair's many aliases.[4]
In the final scene of the episode, Han shot first.[5]
Credits[]
| Cast | Uncredited cast | Crew | Uncredited crew | Special thanks |
Cast
Uncredited cast
|
Crew
|
Appearances[]
| Characters | Organisms | Droid models | Events | Locations |
| Organizations and titles | Sentient species | Vehicles and vessels | Weapons and technology | Miscellanea |
Characters
|
Organisms
Droid models
Locations
|
Organizations and titles
Sentient species
Vehicles and vessels
|
Weapons and technology
Miscellanea
|
Sources[]
- Star Wars: The National Public Radio Dramatization
- The Making of Star Wars For Radio: A Fable For the Mind's Eye
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 'Star Wars' to blast off as a radio series by Gerald B. Jordan on The Kansas City Star (March 2, 1981) (archived from the original on January 24, 2024)
- ↑ The Essential Guide to Alien Species
- ↑ "At the Crossroads: The Spacer's Tale"
- ↑
"Boba Fett and Other Characters of the Underworld" — Star Wars Encyclopedia
- ↑ That Time NPR Turned 'Star Wars' Into A Radio Drama — And It Actually Worked by John, Derek on NPR (December 18, 2015) (archived from the original on May 4, 2022)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Christopher H. Sterling. Encyclopedia of Radio, vol. 3, Routledge, 2004. ISBN 9781135456498. (web archive)
- ↑ Star Wars: The National Public Radio Dramatization