On 6/9/2018 at 11:53 AM, Genuine said:

Add in that there are other economic considerations untouched by the movie (i.e. if Correllian Credits are much stronger than Imperial credits, it goes a long way towards explaining why Han thinks he can get a ship for ~600 credits. 

It didn't occur to me until just now - what if the cheap prices is part of supply and demand. Right now, me in Seattle taking a walk down to the liquor store, will be able to pick up a bottle of tequila for 30 bucks (give or take). if I'm in Tijuana? That same bottle will run me about 5 bucks for two.

Correlia makes ships right? Massive Star Destroyer making shipyards. Stands to reason that you'd be able to pick up a ship for cheap there (your ship might have fallen out of the back of a moving van, but there you go).

Plus I imagine there's plenty of people who go there to buy new ships, and end up needing to get rid of the old one. Can't fly-tip them, and taking them to a breaker's yard will just get you their value in scrap. May as well flip them for a few hundred credits.

Not to mention the fact that Han is a street kid and probably not well versed or educated in economics or the actual cost of things. My 10 year old wants a cell phone because "they're not that expensive, everybody has one.".

So... lets see, here's the list of potential explanations:

• Correllian credits are worth far more than Imperial, to the point where 600 is a reasonable price.
• The 600 wouldn't get a ship, it would just get Han to a place where getting a ship was possible.
• The 600 was just for a down-payment, not full price.
• The price was lowered by a very high supply.
• The ship in question was the SW equivalent of a '95 Geo Metro with 200k miles.
• Han had no idea what a ship really costs.
• Han had no idea what the vial or a ship really cost, but knew that 600 credits was more than he'd ever had before.
• Han knew full well it wasn't enough, but wanted to give his girlfriend hope to escape Lady Proxima.

Did I miss anything?

"I have $600 in my pocket. let's get a car and move out of town."

Why anyone even thinks about buying a ship in this context? Let's get a cab would not have sounded very star wars, but seems more like the intention.

I only watched the film in the German dubbed version but it seemed pretty clear that the 600cr worth of McGuffonium would always only get them through the check point, which in their mind was the most difficult step for their freedom.
Then they wanted to get off planet (unclear whether they had a concrete plan for that) and then they wanted to get their own ship somewhere else.

Maybe they had some pocket money which would get them on a transport off planet (but not enough to bribe an Imperial Officer) or they planned to offer their work on a freighter in exchange for a ride.

At least that's how I saw it the three times I watched the film ?

So having watched it again, the 600 credits was explicitly just buying passage off Corellia. Not the price of a ship. They were imagining getting a ship later.

So we have our first instance of Coaxium outside of Solo. Issue 49 of the main Marvel comic has a mon cal ship fleeing the blockade of Calamari with a cargo hull full of Explodium doing a kamikaze run on a Star Destroyer in the blockade. Blows a fair chunk out of the ship, too - not out and out destruction, but it's certainly crippled.

Still probably not a common tactic tho - I imagine that the Calamari were grabbing as many resources from their planet as they could before the Empire locked things down, and this was clearly a "Well, we do this desperate thing or everyone dies" play. Also, still prohibitively expensive.

On 5/25/2018 at 3:08 PM, Desslok said:

Also, a tangential observation on price - that little sample of coaxium that Han had on Coreliia was - they said it was 600 credits worth, didnt they? Enough to buy a starship?

They said it was enough to buy their way off the planet, didn't say it was enough to buy a ship. Han did say he was going to buy a ship after they got off-world.