On the Sarlacc, and the limits of suspension of disbelief

It’s amazing, the stuff in a story that makes perfect sense to a seven-year-old, but makes an adult stop and think “Hang on… even in make-believe world… that couldn’t work”.

The Sarlacc from Star Wars is a great example. When I was seven and seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater, I heard that the Sarlacc’s victims get slowly, painfully digested over a thousand years and thought “Right. Don’t want any good guys to fall into the hole, then. That would suck. Hooray, badguys fell into the hole! Serves you right, Boba Fett. Don’t f*** with Harrison Ford, is the lesson there.”

But… even granted this is a universe that allows for light sabers, hyperspace travel, and the Force… really a thousand years? The lifespan of a human who ISN’T being digested is 70 years, 100 tops. And that human would only live six weeks max without food of his own, 3 days without drinking water, ten minutes tops without oxygen… none of which are likely to be available inside a giant carnivore’s belly, in the middle of a desert that makes Death Valley look like a rain forest. Assuming he didn’t die instantly by getting impaled on the several rows of giant needle-sharp teeth as he fell in.

More important, how would anyone KNOW that the Sarlacc digests its prey for a thousand years? Who fell into the hole, interviewed some other victims (“Dude, 999 years so far? REALLY? How have you kept count? Where did you even GET an oxygen mask? And you’ve been eating WHAT?”), then somehow got out to tell people “Yeah, seriously man, you DON’T wanna fall into the hole… and if you ever piss off Jabba, beg him to feed you to the Rancor instead”?

Most of all, even granting all that other stuff: What’s in it for the Sarlacc? In order to keep a human alive for even a day, even if that human was not expending calories by struggling to escape or writhing in agony or moving at all, it would have to somehow pump at least a thousand calories into that human. Over the course of a thousand years, that’s… 365 days times 1000 calories times 1000 years… 365 MILLION calories expended to digest a meal that only contains about 150 pounds of meat. Assuming that a pound of human contains about as many calories as a pound of fatty beef, each pound of human meat gives the Sarlacc about 1000 calories – meaning that an average human contains about 150,000 calories.

So Hannibal Lecter can get his nutritional needs met by eating people, sure. But when the Sarlacc eats someone, it expends 365 million calories to get 150,000 calories. Every meal the Sarlacc eats causes it to lose 2400 times more energy than it gains. At that rate, the Sarlacc would starve to death long before the victim did.

 In conclusion: I WAY overthought this.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t work, even in pretend-world where the laws of physics are more or less optional.

Dragons, I can buy into – it’s magic. Rings that make you invisible, no problem. Weapons that could destroy the world – hell, even in the real world we’ve had that since my grandparents were kids. Lasers that can cut through anything at a range of 3 feet then for some reason stop short and don’t continue traveling at 186,000 miles/second, and can be blocked by other laser swords, all controlled by a handle the size of a flashlight… sure, it’s all make-believe anyway. But if the Sarlacc eats you, my money says it’s not a whole lot different than if a giant shark or whale swallowed you alive – even if you somehow can manage without oxygen, you’ve got a few days, tops. And this is coming from a guy who’s still willing to believe that could have ACTUALLY happened to Jonah.

© John M. Munzer