Matt W Cook

Joe and I just finished watching The Empire Strikes back (again). With any good movie there are new things that stick out every time you watch. Two lines stuck out to me this time.
Han: Then I’ll see you in hell!
…
Lando: It’s not my fault!

So Han Solo finds out that his buddy Luke is lost somewhere in the cold night of Hoth, ready to freeze to death. What does he do? He sets off to find him, of course. And then one of the deck officers tells Solo that the temperature is dropping so rapidly that he’ll be dead before he gets very far.
At that point, what would you do? I thin most of us would say something like, “Seriously? Dead before the first marker? Well…shoot. Now what do I do?” We’d waffle. We’d hesitate. But Han rarely hesitates. He shoots back, “Then I’ll see you in hell!” and kicks his tauntan, riding into the snowy twilight.
Han looks at the prize (his friend’s life), looks at the cost (his own life) and makes a call. I’ll go to hell before seeing my friend left alone in the dark.

Now move near the end of the film. We see Lando, Han’s old buddy, betray him to Vader and Boba Fett. He eventually has a change of heart (quite a bit too late) and rescues Leia and Chewie. As they blast away from cloud city they find out, at the worst possible moment, that the hyperdrive is down. How does Lando respond?
“It’s not my fault!”

Friends, maybe. But very different people. Han sees a problem and throws his life on the line to fix it. Lando sees a problem and his first thought is to abdicate responsibility for it. Which one would you rather have at your side in a blaster fight?

Or a church?

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