10 Star Wars "Plot-Holes" That Really Aren't
1. Parsecs: Unit Of Time Or Distance?
The Pot-Hole:
By having Han imply that completing the Kessel Run in 12 Parsecs is fast, George Lucas clearly confused a unit of measurement with a unit of time.
But...
Not necessarily. In the DVD commentary for A New Hope, Lucas states that the Millennium Falcon is fitted with an advanced navigation computer. This allows Han to calculate the most efficient route through the Run, thus justifying the use of a measurement of distance.
Eyeballs will roll, yes, but Lucas is onto something. When navigating through a forest, for example, the most efficient route through the obstacle will naturally translate to the quickest transit. Complete the transit in one hundred meters as opposed to your competitors’ best of one hundred and twenty and you would, in fact, take less time.
In this context the unit of distance does equate to a unit of time.
The confusion arises because Lucas has never clarified what the ‘Kessel’ in ‘Kessel Run’ refers to. An asteroid field? A globular cluster? Horrendously convoluted space lanes? We do not know but, if any of these scenarios are correct, the 12 parsec boast makes perfect sense.
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