The Kessel Run was a 20-parsec hyperspace route within the Akkadese Maelstrom used by smugglers and unscrupulous freighter captains to move spice from the spice mines of Kessel at the behest of the Pyke Syndicate, who relied on the foolhardy Kessel Runs to deliver the illicit substance to their customers.
Han Solo, piloting the Millennium Falcon, made the infamous run in slightly over 12 parsecs, boasting about his ship’s ability to endure shorter but more hazardous routes through hyperspace. By doing so, Solo broke a long-held record.
Yep I read the Han Solo trilogy where this is detailed. He cut the corners tighter and made a shortcut or two through this mazey route.
It’s a great attempt at covering a mistake in the movie. They are clearly discussing the ship’s speed in that scene, not its durability:
“Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon? It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. I’ve outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, I’m talking about the big Corellian ships now. She’s fast enough for you old man.”
The line starts with “fast” and ends with “fast.” It’s about speed, which is distance over time. The smaller the numerator gets there, the lower the speed. And Han is clearly proud that it made the Kessel run in “less than” 12 parsecs. The only way this indicates speed is if parsec is the denominator, or unit of time.
It bugged me to see the author bending over backwards to come up with an explanation retroactively. In the same novels we also learn that the stripe down Han’s pants is not just a wardrobe flair but it has a meaning like a family tartan in Scotland (or some shit).
Reading these books helped me realize how 50% of the whole Star Wars franchise is books and comics milking the movies, inventing whole stories to account for some throwaway line of dialogue or some creature that was on the screen for two seconds. The Rise and Fall of Sy Snootles and the Spiders from Mars. Shit like that. Dumb.
George Lucas has talked about this specific line and measurement in interviews. The idea was that if you have a better nav computer you could get places faster by planting the shortest route. One way to think of it with the hyperspace is as if all ships are held at a more-or-less constant speed in hyperspace, and thus to get there faster than someone the only real was was to find a shorter route through hyperspace. Better nav computers and sensors could plot better courses through asteroid fields and closer to sun’s without having issues, whereas poorer computers would plot really safe routes that take longer.
I’d love to see a primary source on what he said. I’m sure if he said it after years of people lampooning the line, his take was probably defensive and revisionist.
Here are two quick clips. If you spend any time searching into this you will very quickly find lots more. The original comes from the making of documentary done in the 90’s
Eh, fair enough. It is retrospective so we’ll never know how much of that he was thinking about at the time. But he explains it convincingly enough. It’s still a mistake to have such a complicated notion of what goes into hyperspace travel and then not provide enough basis in that for the dialogue to make sense. That might be a worse error than just the simple mistake of using the wrong unit.
The original intent was clearly that Han was bullshitting a farm kid, that’s why Obi-Wan smirks at the line.
Lucas at the time was asked to explain it in interviews because that was simply too subtle for children and Americans. The bullshit he comes up with is that Han is bragging about how good that ship computer is, essentially likening it to an old sailing ship having an expert navigator and accurate sea charts.
The explanation that the EU came up with, unaware of both of those things, is about the black holes and relativity. Honestly a lot better than Lucas’s excuse but ultimately missing the point of the original line.
And the movie Solo, I think, actually did a pretty genius job of uniting these interpretations. The Falcon gets a uniquely powerful ship computer, black holes fuck with relativity, and then the number he relates in the movie is higher than the one the one he tells Luke. Honestly the best thing the movie did imo.
That and actually showing blasters as dangerous instead of people prat falling when they get hit in the shoulder.
I didn’t know what a parsec even was, the first dozen times I saw A New Hope. Even now, I’m happy to let the line slide, although it does make me laugh. Not because of the line itself, but the fact that Lucas got caught with his pants down, and instead of laughing it off he and other writers bent over backwards to insist that he didn’t make a mistake.
The Kessel Run was a 20-parsec hyperspace route within the Akkadese Maelstrom used by smugglers and unscrupulous freighter captains to move spice from the spice mines of Kessel at the behest of the Pyke Syndicate, who relied on the foolhardy Kessel Runs to deliver the illicit substance to their customers.
Han Solo, piloting the Millennium Falcon, made the infamous run in slightly over 12 parsecs, boasting about his ship’s ability to endure shorter but more hazardous routes through hyperspace. By doing so, Solo broke a long-held record.
Source: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kessel_Run
And everyone in the galaxy knows about it. Han is a terrible smuggler.
Yep I read the Han Solo trilogy where this is detailed. He cut the corners tighter and made a shortcut or two through this mazey route.
It’s a great attempt at covering a mistake in the movie. They are clearly discussing the ship’s speed in that scene, not its durability:
The line starts with “fast” and ends with “fast.” It’s about speed, which is distance over time. The smaller the numerator gets there, the lower the speed. And Han is clearly proud that it made the Kessel run in “less than” 12 parsecs. The only way this indicates speed is if parsec is the denominator, or unit of time.
It bugged me to see the author bending over backwards to come up with an explanation retroactively. In the same novels we also learn that the stripe down Han’s pants is not just a wardrobe flair but it has a meaning like a family tartan in Scotland (or some shit).
Reading these books helped me realize how 50% of the whole Star Wars franchise is books and comics milking the movies, inventing whole stories to account for some throwaway line of dialogue or some creature that was on the screen for two seconds. The Rise and Fall of Sy Snootles and the Spiders from Mars. Shit like that. Dumb.
George Lucas has talked about this specific line and measurement in interviews. The idea was that if you have a better nav computer you could get places faster by planting the shortest route. One way to think of it with the hyperspace is as if all ships are held at a more-or-less constant speed in hyperspace, and thus to get there faster than someone the only real was was to find a shorter route through hyperspace. Better nav computers and sensors could plot better courses through asteroid fields and closer to sun’s without having issues, whereas poorer computers would plot really safe routes that take longer.
I’d love to see a primary source on what he said. I’m sure if he said it after years of people lampooning the line, his take was probably defensive and revisionist.
https://youtube.com/shorts/VOys-f1HaIc?si=PnIilsRNkmwKqXOz
https://youtube.com/shorts/f5bftwl0h_I?si=-auF-tZARB57ThZy
Here are two quick clips. If you spend any time searching into this you will very quickly find lots more. The original comes from the making of documentary done in the 90’s
Eh, fair enough. It is retrospective so we’ll never know how much of that he was thinking about at the time. But he explains it convincingly enough. It’s still a mistake to have such a complicated notion of what goes into hyperspace travel and then not provide enough basis in that for the dialogue to make sense. That might be a worse error than just the simple mistake of using the wrong unit.
My favorite part of a movie is the part where you have to read a wiki and listen to a commentary so that one slightly questionable line makes sense.
It doesn’t have to make sense, you could just treat it as technobabble and enjoy the rest of the movie without worries.
Right! He’s either [wiki explanation], or he’s trying to impress a naïve farm boy with bullshit.
It goes deeper.
The original intent was clearly that Han was bullshitting a farm kid, that’s why Obi-Wan smirks at the line.
Lucas at the time was asked to explain it in interviews because that was simply too subtle for children and Americans. The bullshit he comes up with is that Han is bragging about how good that ship computer is, essentially likening it to an old sailing ship having an expert navigator and accurate sea charts.
The explanation that the EU came up with, unaware of both of those things, is about the black holes and relativity. Honestly a lot better than Lucas’s excuse but ultimately missing the point of the original line.
And the movie Solo, I think, actually did a pretty genius job of uniting these interpretations. The Falcon gets a uniquely powerful ship computer, black holes fuck with relativity, and then the number he relates in the movie is higher than the one the one he tells Luke. Honestly the best thing the movie did imo.
That and actually showing blasters as dangerous instead of people prat falling when they get hit in the shoulder.
I didn’t know what a parsec even was, the first dozen times I saw A New Hope. Even now, I’m happy to let the line slide, although it does make me laugh. Not because of the line itself, but the fact that Lucas got caught with his pants down, and instead of laughing it off he and other writers bent over backwards to insist that he didn’t make a mistake.
It’s fine George! Nobody’s perfect!